IPA phoneme /ʊ/

In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic symbol /ʊ/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "foot", "put", "pull" and "could".

Common words
This phoneme is very uncommon. Below there is a list that includes all common words with /ʊ/ (it excludes derivative words such as football or wolves).
 * with "oo": book - cook - foot - good - hood - hook - look - shook - stood - took - wood - wool - whoops!
 * with "o": wolf - woman
 * with "ou": could - would - should
 * with "u": bull - bullet - bully - bush - butcher - cushion - full - pudding - pull - push - put - sugar
 * homophones: wood - would.

Less common words

 * with "oo": brook - crook - rook - soot
 * with "o": bosom
 * with "u": bushel - bulletin - chutzpah - cuckoo - fulfil - fulfill - pulpit

Spelling anomaly

 * Worcester /ˈwʊstər/

These words don't rhyme

 * foot - boot; full - null; would - ; wolf - golf; woman - Roman;

/ʊ/ followed by /r/
Both in Received Pronunciation and in General American when /ʊ/ is followed by /r/ in the same syllable, a diphthong is pronounced: IPA phoneme /ʊə/. Cure is [kjʊər].

In Received Pronunciation but not in General American there is a difference between /ʊər/ and /ʊr/ when these sequences are followed by a vowel: mural is [ˈmjʊərəl] and guru is [ˈgʊruː]. In General American there is no difference: some people pronounce [ˈmjʊərəl] and [ˈgʊəruː] and others [ˈmjʊrəl] and [ˈgʊruː]. Since the difference between [ʊər] and [ʊr] is predictable, phoneticians say that in American English there is no phoneme /ʊə/, only phoneme

See also: Decoding exercises: "urV" and "urrV"

Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1
Preconceived ideas and other interferences from L1 obviously interfere in many cases with how students perceive - and pronounce - sounds/words in English. The following sections aims to point out some of the most typical difficulties teachers and students may encounter regarding pronunciation.

Spanish
See Pronunciation exercises: /uː/ vs /ʊ/ § Spanish.