How to Pronounce the Letter U

In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to take a look at how this letter is pronounced.I often get emails from people asking questions like, ‘Why is the CH in CHICAGO pronounced differently than the CH in CHOICE?’ SH vs. CH. And my answer is always, unfortunately, the sounds of American English do not correspond one-to-one with the letters of the alphabet. To know for sure how a word is pronounced, you need to either hear a native speaker say the word, or look up the word in a dictionary that has the International Phonetic Alphabet transcription.

Let’s look at the letter U. In the word ‘autumn’, it is the schwa sound, uh, uh, autumn In the word ‘up’, it is the UH vowel. Up. In the word ‘union’, it is the ‘you’ diphthong. Union. In the word ‘bury’, the EH vowel. Bury. In the word ‘sugar’, it is the UH vowel. Sugar. In the word ‘flute’, the ‘oo’ as in ‘boo’ vowel. Flute. In the word ‘suite’, it is the W sound. Suite. In the word ‘minute’, it is the IH vowel. Minute.

So when you see this letter in a word, you can’t make assumptions about how it is pronounced. Look it up in a dictionary, or have a native speaker say the word to you.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Don’t stop there. Have fun with my real-life English videos. Or get more comfortable with the IPA in this play list. Learn about the online courses I offer, or check out my latest video.