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.