sounds of word you and letter U

[MikeNewYork]

Taiwain, I think you are confusing the pronounced name of the vowel with its sound. There is no "y" sound in "prune" or "rune" or "tune", etc. The vowel sound is "oo".

 

[Roman55]

That's not the case with 'tune' in BrE. It has the same sound as in 'you',

 

[MikeNewYork]

That would not be the first difference between AmE and BrE.

 

[Roman55]

Nor the last.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

The British generally like to pronounce the long-U dipthong yoo, as in tyoon and Tyoosday. Learning American English takes more memorizing, because some words use the long U (cute, fuse, compute, abuse) and some don't (dues, June, tune, Tuesday, capsule).

These things are so natural to us that we don't even notice them. But it can drive ESL students around the bend!

And as usual, anything goes. Here in Maine, I've heard deluge pronounced duh-LOOJ. (Yes - with a hard J!)

 

[MikeNewYork]

"because some words use the long U (cute, fuse, compute, abuse) and some don't (dues, June, tune, Tuesday, capsule)."

I don't understand the distinction you are making.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

"because some words use the long U (cute, fuse, compute, abuse) and some don't (dues, June, tune, Tuesday, capsule)."

I don't understand the distinction you are making.

Demonstrating my point exactly! It's so ingrained in us that we don't even notice the difference unless someone points it out to us (as it was pointed out to me). The word we pronounce cyoot is different from the word we pronounce coot. And a coot is rarely cute.

We pay doos. The British pay dyoos. They pay them on Tyoosday. We pay them on Toosday. In British, the U in that set of words is always long, a dipthong. In American it varies - sometimes we say yoo (a dipthong) and sometimes we say oo (a monothong).

But we pronounce other words the same way the British do: fuse, compute, and so on. We don't light a fooz, we light a fyooz. We don't compoot, we compyoot. In those words and many others, we keep the Y sound.

In other words, in British, the Y sound is always there. But ESL students studying American need to learn when the Y sound is there and when it isn't. And there's no short-cut to learning it. It's pure memorization.

 

[Roman55]

In British,

You have said this twice in this thread, and also in other threads. Please don't call it British, there is no such language.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

You have said this twice in this thread, and also in other threads. Please don't call it British, there is no such language.

Yup! I've said it in other threads, too. I've also suggested "American American" and "British British." "British English" is redundant and "American English" is an oxymoron.

 

[MikeNewYork]

American English and British English are useful terms to indicate differences. Neither is an oxymoron.