[dcminter]

Aside from your conundrum I'm wondering what "ah as in yacht" could even mean; to this puzzled Brit there is no "ah" sound in "yacht". I'd spell it phonetically "yot" - do others pronounce it "yaht" or am I completely misunderstanding?

[dwringer]

"Open your mouth and say ah" "tot" "yacht" - these all have very close to the same vowel sound to me as an American, although "tot" is more of an outlier and "taught" might be closer to how I conceptualize of the sound. I'm not sure I'd ever hear the difference in practice.

[dcminter]

Heh, very different to me then, thanks!

[haunter]

I’m ESL but always pronounced it as /jɑxt/ like in dutch https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Nl-jacht.ogg

[umanwizard]

Native English speakers don’t do that. The “ch” only appears in spelling.

[umanwizard]

How are you pronouncing “yaht” ? I (American) would read “yaht” and “yot” exactly the same way.

[dcminter]

This clarifies it I hope? It has audio & proper phonetic alphabet spelling for US vs UK.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/yacht

[junon]

Assuming it's similar to "folly" vs. "foley".

[Koshkin]

Not even close.

[junon]

Care to expand?

[Koshkin]

Sure: “yaht” and “yot” sound virtually the same (at least in American English), only maybe slightly different in the length of the vowel; “folly” and “foley”, on the other hand, sound very different from one another.

[junon]

Yes, that is my point. "Yot" is pronounced differently (as in "foley") outside of America in a lot of cases.