Yacht is said yot, like hot. The CH in the middle is silent, because the word was borrowed with a Dutch-style spelling and English never kept the sound.
First, how do you pronounce it?
YOT
It rhymes with hot, pot and spot. The CH and the T are not said as a separate sound.
The weird part
Look at the letters: Y-A-C-H-T. Five letters, but only three sounds: y, o, t.
spelling: yacht
sound: yot
Where does "yacht" come from?
Yacht came into English in the 1550s, from Dutch and Norwegian jaght. Those words go back to a Middle Low German word, jacht. It was short for jachtschip, which meant "ship for chasing", a fast ship.
The root is the verb jagen, "to chase" or "to hunt". The very first yachts were fast ships for important people. Later the word came to mean a boat used by rich people for fun or racing.
The first English spellings were all over the place. You can find yeaghe, jaght and jacht, before the word settled as yacht.
So where did the CH go?
In the Dutch spelling, ch stood for a throaty sound, a bit like the ch in the Scottish word loch. English didn't have that sound in its everyday speech, so English speakers said the word as yot and kept the letters on the page.
It is the same kind of story as the GH in "night". Those letters once stood for a throaty sound too, and English stopped saying it.
⚠️ Common Mistakes
Don't say the CH.
❌ YATCH-t, YAK-t
✅ YOT
Spelling by sound.
❌ yot, yaught, yaht
✅ yacht
💬 In a Conversation
Sam: Look at that yacht!
Mia: You said it right.
Sam: I practised.
Mia: Practised what?
Sam: Saying a word with five letters and three sounds.
⏳ The OddLingo Timeline
Middle Low German jacht: short for "ship for chasing"
↓ Dutch and Norwegian jaght
↓ 1550s: English yeaghe, then jaght and jacht
↓ later: settled as yacht
↓ today: spelled yacht, said YOT
🥡 The OddLingo Takeaway
Sometimes English borrows a word, keeps its spelling, and says it in its own way.
Yacht keeps the letters of a Dutch word and the sound of an English one.