American English OO u Vowel How to make the OO Vowel
In this American English pronunciation
video, we’re going to learn how to
pronounce the OO as in BOO vowel.
This sound is a little different from all
of the other vowel sounds. Other vowel
sounds have one mouth position, ee, for
example. And it’s the position of the
tongue, lips, and jaw that make the
sound. For this vowel, the movement
into and out of the position is just as
important as the position itself, ih-oo.
We’ll talk about that in a second. First,
let’s take a look at the mouth position.
To make this sound, the back part of
the tongue stretches up towards the
soft palate. The front part of the
tongue remains down, lightly touching,
or just behind, the bottom front teeth.
I’m sure you can see the lips round a
lot. We want to begin this sound with
lips that are more relaxed to move into
this tighter lip position.
Let’s take the word ‘do’ as an example.
The lip position doesn’t matter for the
D sound. The lips can start moving into
the position for the next sound when
making the D, like in the consonant
cluster ‘drop’. Did you see how my lips
were already forming the R when I
made the D? Drop. So what happens
when we make the lip position for OO
as we make the D sound? Du, du.
That’s not the right sound, do, du. To
make the right American OO sound, the
lips have to start out, more relaxed, and
then come into this tight circle. This
transition into position for the sound is
just as important as the position itself.
Let’s see up close and in slow motion.
Lips start in a bigger flare, more
relaxed, before moving into the tighter
circle. Look at how much the corners of
the lips come in for this sound.
Now let’s take a look at the word ‘do’.
Remember, we don’t want to start with
the lips in a tight circle, but in a more
relaxed position so they can move into
the tight circle. Then lips move from
the flare into the tighter circle.
It might help to think to think of this
sound as ih-oo, starting with a more
relaxed lip position. Ih-oo.
In a stressed syllable, you have an up-
down shape in the voice, OO, OO. In an
unstressed syllable, the pitch will be
flatter and lower, and it will be quieter
and quicker, oo, oo. The OO vowel is
unstressed in the word ‘visual’, oo.
Let’s take a look up close and in slow
motion.
Often, unstressed vowels have a more
relaxed lip position. Notice that, for the
oo vowel, the lips do still come into a
tight circle.
The OO vowel stressed: do, OO
The OO vowel unstressed: visual, oo
OO, oo, OO, oo.
Example words. Repeat with me:
Blue, issue, suit, move, influence, two.