Welcome back to my channel Learn Academic English today I'm continuing my series
of pronunciation videos with a video about the vowel sound /U/ as in foot I got the
idea for this video because recently I saw a youtube video about how to pronounce the word
sugar and I noticed that the person in the video pronounced it with the wrong vowel
that got me thinking about how tricky English vowels are and about how some of the vowels
are difficult to hear or they might not exist in your language so it's difficult to learn them
however this vowel /U/ is very common and it's important to know the difference between the vowel
and the vowel which is in words with similar spellings first let's talk quickly about how to
make the vowel the vowel /U/ is made with rounded lips but notice that the lips are kind of relaxed
/U/ it's not ooh it's /U/ what you can do to make the vowel /U/ is make the vowel and then relax it
let's look at some example words foot now you can think here about the difference between
foot and food can you hear the difference in the vowel foot food if you notice
the first one foot is more relaxed and the second one food is longer and tighter more
tense the vowel /U/ is in a lot of words that are spelled with double o k as in book hook look
cook took
so again think about the difference between /U/ and /uw/ we don't say kook right or cuck it's
cook cook let's look at some more wood good
hood
stood now notice that not all double o d words sound like /U/ some of them sound
like ooh as in the word food but many of them will sound like /U/ as in good wool
now that's a difficult word to say but wool is the material that comes from sheep wool wood
should could all of those words have the same vowel and the l is
silent let's look at a couple more with the o spelling wolf
woman now let's look at some words that are spelled with the letter
u but they sound like /U/ put
sugar full
bull
pull I know those are hard words but after the /U/ you're going to make a clear l pull push
bush
bully a bully is a person who mistreats people who says mean things to people especially
in school with children cushion
butcher
fulfill full fulfill and the last one pudding finally let's contrast the /U/ vowel with words
that have a similar spelling but a different vowel for example foot boot so you can hear
the vowels are different the first one is the vowel /U/ and the second one is the vowel foot
boot good food okay same spelling with double o d but different vowels again good
food the next one full null totally different vowels in the first one we have /U/
full and the second one we have the schwa vowel null /U/ /U/ null the next one
would mold so the first one is /U/ the second one is /o/ as in boat would mold the next one wolf
golf so again same spelling different vowels in the first one /U/ wolf second one /a/
golf and the last contrast woman Roman can you think of other words in English that have the /U/
vowel? let me know in the comments below and I will try to leave some more examples in the
description box for you to practice with good luck with English vowels if you're interested in more
pronunciation videos I have a link that you can use to check out my other pronunciation lessons
thanks so much take care and I'll see you next time!