Do you have the cot–caught merger?

[Lechasseur]

No, I pronounce "cot" like "caht" and "caught" like "cawt."

This

Same for me

[Lechasseur]

I don't pronounce these two the same, but weirdly in spite of that I do pronounce the "aw" sound in "caught" and "coffee" pretty similarly. So it's not really that simple.

Well isn't that normal? I pronounce the au in caught as "aw" and the o in coffee as "aw" as well.

How else are they to be pronounced? Caht and cahfee?

[Lechasseur]

No, but I do have the pin-pen merger.  I also don't have the sure-shore merger.

I have neither of those mergers

Seems like I merge nothing lol

[Lechasseur]

In theory, I have learned how to pronounce English basing mostly on RP, so hell no.
But since I don't have to speak English for a living and I don't record myself when speaking, maybe sometimes I have it (the "cot" vowel doesn't exist in Italian, the "caught" one does, so it's easy to inadvertently merge the two).

Well isn't the "o" in cot pronounced like "a" in other languages?

At anyrate I pronounce it as "ah"

[Lechasseur]

In theory, I have learned how to pronounce English basing mostly on RP, so hell no.
But since I don't have to speak English for a living and I don't record myself when speaking, maybe sometimes I have it (the "cot" vowel doesn't exist in Italian, the "caught" one does, so it's easy to inadvertently merge the two).

Well isn't the "o" in cot pronounced like "a" in other languages?

At anyrate I pronounce it as "ah"

I don't exactly understand what you mean.

But:
The /ɒ/ of cot is in my perception like halfway between an A and an O.
The /ɔ/ of caught is just the open O of Italian. Like in cosa, rosa, toro (first O) etc.

In UK English that's correct

But in American English there's the father-bother merger so the "o" in cot is pronounced like the "a" in father

[Lechasseur]

Those three extra letters aren't there just to make spelling more difficult ..

Only two are.  If English had some mechanism to reform spelling, "caught" would be "caut".

The "gh" was pronouned back in the day and was pronounced like the German "ch".

English spelling simply hasn't evolved much since the Renaissance (our spelling essentially corresponds to the pronounciation of the Tudor era due to the introduction of the printing press in England leading to a more or less standardization of English spelling).

That being said, I like English spelling.

[Lechasseur]

Those three extra letters aren't there just to make spelling more difficult ..

And yeah agreed

[Lechasseur]

No, I pronounce "cot" like "caht" and "caught" like "cawt."

This

Same for me

Wait, “caht”? As in, cot rhymes with bat?

I pronounce the o in cot like the a in father

[Lechasseur]

What is it with Seppos not being able to say words properly?

If anything Court and Caught should be the bloody issue people have.

Yep, the definitely sound more alike than caught and cot

With me, none are the same (although the r does lengthen the vowel rather than being a hard r) but court and caught are way closer than caught and cot