How to Pronounce the /ʌ/ Sound 

How to Pronounce the /ʌ/ Sound

In this lesson, we are going to learn how the sound /ʌ/ is produced by looking at the articulatory organs.

What Type of Sound Is /ʌ/?

/ʌ/ is a short vowel between /o/ and /ɑ/. It is the unrounded form of /ɔ/.

How to Produce /ʌ/?

ThumbnailPhoto

To produce it, as you see in the picture, the mouth must be open a little bit and the lips must be unrounded. As you can see in the picture, the mouth is more open than the /ɑ/ sound and less rounded than when producing the /o/ sound.

Which Letters are Pronounced as /ʌ/?

The sound /ʌ/ is represented by the following letters:

ThumbnailPhoto

u:

Example

much /mʌtʃ/

umbrella /ʌmˈbɹɛlə/

o:

Example

company /ˈkʌm.pə.ni/

front /fɹʌnt/

Example

country /ˈkʌn.tri/

cousin /ˈkʌzən/

Example

blood /blʌd/

flood /flʌd/

/ʌ/ Around the World

As you can see in the table below, most of the common languages around the world do not have this sound. Do not worry if the sound does not exist in your language, with a little practice you will be able to produce it.

Existence

Example

Mandarin

x

-

Spanish

x

-

Hindi

x

-

Bengali

x

-

Portuguese

x

-

Russian

x

-

Japanese

x

-

Vietnamese

x

-

Turkish

x

-

French

x

-

German

x

-

Italian

x

-

Persian

x

-

Standard Arabic

x

-

Korean

거울

Indonesian

x

-

Filipino

x

-

Hungarian

x

-

Dutch

jou

Polish

x

-

Romanian

x

-

Swedish

x

-

Czech

x

-

Greek

x

-

Ukrainian

x

-

Urdu

x

-

Listening

Let's listen to the pronunciation of the /ʌ/ sound which has been mentioned below:

0:00.00
0:00.00

Down below, there are two other sounds similar to the /ʌ/ sound. At first, listen to the /ɑ/ sound and then listen to the /o/ sound:

0:00.00
0:00.00
0:00.00
0:00.00

Comments

(0)
Loading Recaptcha...
Share on :
books
Learn English VocabularyStart learning categorized English vocabulary on Langeek.
Click to start
LanGeek
Download LanGeek app