In Part 2-5 of Japanese Phonetics with Fumi, we learned how long vowels are written.
There, I explained the pronunciation of せん「せい」（先生, teacher） and 「こうこう」（高校, high schcool) .
Although these two are written as “せい” and “こう” , they are pronounced as “せえ” and “こお” respectively because they are the onyomi, Chinese reading of a kanji.
And most of the time, when you see 'ou' and 'ei,' the pronunciation is 'oo' and 'ee.'
But languages always have exceptions for everything.
Here’s an exception. (This is just additional information so please don’t be stressed out to memorize it. Just for curiosity.)
Let’s think about the reading of these two.
子牛（こうし）
孔子（こうし）
Both of the furigana(reading of kanji) are こうし.
But, their pronunciations are slightly different.
孔子(Confucius, the influential Chinese philosopher, lived around the 5th century BCE) is a name and onyomi of 孔 is こう and onyomi of 子 isし. So, in this case, こう is pronounced as こお, thus, こうし is read as "こおし."
On the other hand, 子牛 can be divided as 子(child) and 牛(cow/bull) and 子牛 means ‘calf.’
And こ and うし are both kunyomi, Japanese reading of a kanji.
So they are こ＋うし, and and the combination is pronounced as こうし. う is pronounced as う.
Have a great day :)
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