Comparing the 3 Uh Sounds American English Pronunciation

there are three sounds in American

English what is the difference between

these three sounds let’s start with the

UH as in butter ah as you can see there

is some drop in the jaw ah and the

tongue is resting on the bottom of the

mouth touching just behind these teeth

ah ah the schwa is similar the tongue

position is the same resting on the

bottom of the mouth touching just there

however there is not the drop in the jaw

uh uh uh the UH as in pull this has some

drop of the job with the lips do

something completely different they come

out a little bit because they person

here at the corners pull now there are

how-to videos for each of these three

sounds but I wanted to bring them

together so that we could compare let’s

look at some photos all of the photos

were taken as I said the word that

contains the sound not just the sound by

itself here you see the as the butter

and as in supply sounds compared on the

left the UH as in butter you can see

that the jaw is dropping more the teeth

are further apart and the chin is

further down here is butter versus pull

you can see the corners of the mouth in

pull are coming together just a little

bit

this brings the top and bottom lip away

from the face the top lip here is

covering the front teeth whereas with

the UH as in butter sound you can see

just a bit of the top teeth here are all

three again you can see that the jaw is

dropped more on butter leaving more

space between the top and bottom lips

here are butter and pull and profile it

is difficult to see but the corners of

the mouth in pull have come in a little

bit and the mouth looks slightly less

relaxed you can see a change in the top

lip as it has slightly pulled away from

the face here are all three in profile

now let’s look at a few sample words

first the schwa or as in supply sound

supply sofa condition condition has two

choise in the first and the last

syllable condition conduct compose the

UH as in pull sound pull good should

could the UH as in butter butter

mother brother because and because it is

the second syllable because one last

note the schwa sound only occurs in

unaccented syllables this means that the

length will most likely be shorter than

the other two vowel sounds when they

occur in accented syllables