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Anonymous Posted 19 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

a question about /u:/

0hi guys,02br
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00I am non-native English speaker. I wonder why so many English speakers do not say the words 'lOOk', 'bOOk', 'cOOk' with the /u:/ as stated in the dictionary. Is the /u:/ sound incorrect? But it is stated in the dictionary and supposed to be standard. But when they say 'mood', 'food' 'foot', they will say them with /u:/ sound. That is strange, isn't it?02br
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00daniel0-
  

Top answer

0It depends on people's accent. 02br 02br 00In the UK, 01b 00most02b 00 people would say look, book, cook, and foot with the same sound - I don't know how to make the symbol for it though. 0-

— Nona the brit

  • 0It depends on people's accent.
  • 02br 02br 00In the UK, 01b 00most02b 00 people would say look, book, cook, and foot with the same sound - I don't know how to make the symbol for it though.
  • 0-
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5 Answers
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0It depends on people's accent. There are many native English accents.02br
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00In the UK, 01b00most02b00 people would say look, book, cook, and foot with the same sound - I don't know how to make the symbol for it though. 02br
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00Then only mood and food have /u:/.02br
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00There are accents which use the
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0 Are you sure they are exactly the same symbol? There are two different symbols for "u". If the dictionary is using IPA, one of the symbols looks like this: /u:/; the other looks like this: /ʊ:/. (The 2nd one may or may not display correctly on your computer.) /ʊ/ is used for "look", "book" and "cook"; "mood" and food" have /u/. Foot has /ʊ/. If your dictionary uses the same symbol for bo
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0The oo-sound in foot is not the same as the one in food. Your dictionary should have two different symbols for those sounds, if it doesn't distinguish those sounds, please throw it away! 05000 Pronouncing dictionaries are useful for learners, you can also find some online (for example Merriam-Webster).02br
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00I don't know where you are from, Anonymous, but in
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0Hi Kooyeen,01blockquote
00I realized that my English teachers were a bunch of morons.12blockquote
11blockquote
00they just have had idiot teachers.12blockquote
10Please don't blame your teachers. I am sure they did all they could to help you and your colleagues learn English. If you learn English at school you should know
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0 Ah I see. I always thought Italians simply couldn't manage the lax /U/ vowel. 0-
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