The -ture ending

Pronounced /tʃər/ — picture, nature, future. The t is not /t/, which is why letter-by-letter decoding fails here.

Word endings

-ture SUFFIX_TURE_01

Strong rule · High reliability · Common · Advanced · Reading and spelling

• /tʃər/ -ture: picture, nature, future

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 13: Suffixes

Child explanation

Ture says /cher/. Picture, nature, future — the t sounds like ch.

The rule

The ending -ture is pronounced /tʃər/ and read as one chunk. The related -sure ending is /ʒər/: measure, treasure, pleasure.

What is really going on

Palatalisation of /t/ before the /j/ of an old -ure ending, the same process that produced /ʃ/ in -tion. Always unstressed, so the vowel is reduced — /tʃər/, not /tʃʊər/.

Position in the word

• End of a word — Always word-final. For example: picture, nature, future.

Examples

Easy examples

picture, nature, future, capture

More examples

adventure, creature, furniture, temperature, mixture, feature, lecture, structure

Advanced examples

measure, treasure, pleasure, leisure

Contrast pairs

• picture versus pitcher — Different spellings, nearly identical sounds.
• nature versus measure — -ture versus -sure.

Teacher note

Teach with -tion as a second chunk of the same kind. Both are unstressed, both hide a /t/ or /s/ that has changed, and both are best taken in one glance.

Learn these first

• The -tion ending — -tion — One chunk, one sound: /ʃən/. Read it whole and four-syllable words become manageable.

Related rules

• The -tion ending — -tion — One chunk, one sound: /ʃən/. Read it whole and four-syllable words become manageable.
• CH and its three sounds — ch — /tʃ/ in chip, /k/ in school, /ʃ/ in chef. Each group has a cause — and the cause is where the word came from.
• Schwa — any vowel letter, unstressed — The most common vowel sound in English, spelled with any vowel letter at all. It is why decoding every vowel fully produces a word nobody says.

• Previous in Word endings: The -sion and -cian endings — -sion / -cian — -cian is /ʃən/ like -tion. -sion is /ʃən/ after a consonant and /ʒən/ after a vowel — mission versus vision.
• Next in Word endings: The -ous, -ious and -eous endings — -ous / -ious / -eous — All reduce to /əs/ — famous, serious, gorgeous. The ou is schwa, which is why it looks nothing like the ou of cloud.
• All reading rules

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