Vowels: short u sound /ʌ/

Listen to the short u sound

How to pronounce the short u sound

The body of the tongue is relaxed and set low in the mouth. The sides of the tongue lightly touch the bottom teeth during the formation of the sound. The jaw is kept in a neutral position, and the lips are relaxed.

The overall relaxed nature of the formation of this sound is why it is commonly used for the pronunciation of the vowel sound of an unstressed syllable. The short i sound may also be used in an unstressed syllable, but the short u/schwa is more common.

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Common short u spellings

spelling	example		other pronunciations for spelling
-u-(CVC)[1]	us duck just		other u (put)

[1] u spelling followed by the letter r
When the consonant following the letter u is the letter r (as in the words blur and fur), the sound is usually pronounced as the schwa+r instead of the short u sound followed by the r sound.

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The short u sound in suffixes

none

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Non-phonetic short u words
The short u sound is underlined in the following words:
won/one[2] done none from come enough mother brother

[2]: won/one
The words one and won are homonyms and are pronounced the same.

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Pronuncian Lessons

  

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l sound /l/

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Introduction to Stops

t sound /t/

b sound /b/

g sound /ɡ/

k sound /k/

Letter x Pronunciation: k+s or g+z

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