外教教你学英语音标 后元音[ʊ]

/ʊ/ is a back vowel sound made with the lips slightly rounded.

The tip of the tongue is relaxed and touching behind the lower front teeth for all vowel sounds.

To make the /ʊ/ sound, the back of the tongue needs to be a bit higher than the front of the tongue...

...and the lip corners are slightly forward like this: /ʊ/, /ʊ/.

A common challenge with the /ʊ/ sound is that the speaker will overround the lips and bring the tongue up too high.

This creates the /u/ sound.

So a word like "could" ends up sounding like "cooed."

A great way to practice the /ʊ/ sound is in relation to the /u/ sound.

So use your hands to mirror what the tongue is doing and try this along with me.

/u/, /ʊ/, /u/, /ʊ/.

Can you feel how the tongue drops and the lips are more released for the /ʊ/ sound?

Let's try this again.

/u/, /ʊ/, /u/, /ʊ/, /u/, /ʊ/.

Now let's try some words that contrast the two sounds.

Look, Luke.

Full, fool.

Pull, pool.

Would, wooed.

And now a few sentences.

Finally, the fool was full.

The horse should be shoed.

Keep up your practice on EnglishCentral and good luck!