PHONETICS: /uː/

In British English, the phonetic symbol /u:/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "moon", "do" and "June". It is called a long vowel. 

Some common words which practice this pronunciation include the following:

• with "ew": blew - brew - chew - crew - drew - screw - threw;
• with "o": do - lose - shoe - two - who - whose;
• with "oo": boot - choose - cool - fool - loose - moon - pool - root - school - soon - stool - tool;
• with "ou": soup - through - you;
• with "u": blue - flu - June - rule - sue - true;
• with "ui": bruise - cruise - fruit - juice - lawsuit - suit - suitable - suitcase;
• homophones: blew/blue - chews/choose - flew/flu - threw/through - too/two.

While /u:/ is very similar to the Spanish letter "u", it is actually much longer, and some Spanish speakers may, at first, have difficulty distinguishing between the vowel sound in "move" and that of /ʊ/, as in "foot", which is shorter than the Spanish "u". Practice may therefore need to be given to help distinguish between words like "pull" and "pool" or "full" and "fool".

Written by Victoria Overton

Native English Spain is dedicated to make learning English simple, fun and affordable for Spanish people.