Phonetics - Lesson 6

Lowercase u /u/

 “ooo”

/u/ as in “group”, “super”, “truth”...

• Point vowel - High Back

• Rounded

• Tense

• /ju/ - “you”, “few”, “argue

Upsilon /ʊ/

“ou”

/ʊ/ as in “wood”, “should”, “wolf”...

• High Back

• Rounded

• Lax

Lowercase o /o/

Unstressed “oh”

/o/ (unstressed) as in “okay

• Mid - Back

• Rounded

• Tense
  

Diphthong Lowercase o /oʊ/

/oʊ/ - Stressed “oh”

/oʊ/ (stressed) as in “row”

• Mid - Back

• Rounded

• Tense

• /oʊ/ is found in stressed syllables or at the end of words.
  

Open o /ɔ/

“ouh”

/ɔ/ as in “talking”, “gone”,”log”..

• Mid - Back

• Rounded

• Tense

• Becomes r-colored when followed by r-sound: “corn” /kɔɹn/, bored, fort

  • Think /ɔɚ/ but use /ɔɹ/

• Dialectal variation: Some use this vowel instead of /a/ in “saw”, “caught”

Script ɑ /ɑ/

“awh”
/ɑ / as in “hot”, “ostrich”, “cot”...

• Low - Back

• Only Unrounded back vowel

• Tense

• Becomes r-colored when followed by r-sound: “shard” /ʃɑɹd/

Diphthongs

/aʊ/	how
/aɪ/	bike, tie
/ɔɪ/	boy
/eɪ/	bake, hay (S)
/oʊ/	rose, low (S)