IPA phoneme /uː/

In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic symbol /uː/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "goose", "moon", "do" and "June".

The actual sound may be [uː], [uw] or [ʉw]. See IPA phonetic symbol [w].

Common words
Some common words which practice this pronunciation include the following:
 * with "ew": blew - brew - chew - crew - drew - screw - threw
 * with "o": approve - approval - improve - lose - move - movie - prove - remove - shoe - tomb - whose - womb
 * final "o": do - two - who
 * strong forms and before vowels: into - onto - to


 * with "oo": boot - Cameroon - choose - cool - food - fool - Liverpool - loose - moon - pool - root - school - shampoo - shoot - soon - stool - tool - tooth - troop - zoo
 * with "ou": group - soup - through - you - youth


 * with "u": flu - include - June - Peru - rule - truth
 * with "ue": blue - glue - sue - true
 * with "ui": bruise - cruise - fruit - juice - lawsuit - suit - suitable - suitcase

In many words /uː/ is preceded by /j/ as in you, music or few. See IPA phonetic sequence /juː/.
 * homophones: blew/blue - chews/choose - flew/flu - threw/through - too/two.

Uncommon words
Stress marks added to facilitate pronunciation.
 * with "u": gnu - ˈguru - ˈhaiku - ˈtofu
 * with "ou": aˈcoustic - ˈcaribou - rouˈlette - rouˈtine - wound (injury)
 * with "oo": bamˈboo - boo - ˈcuckoo /ˈkʊkuː/ - ˈigloo - kangaˈroo - moo - shoo - taˈboo - tatˈtoo - too - ˈvoodoo - ˈWaterloo or Waterˈloo

These words don't rhyme

 * do - go; food - good - blood; lose - nose; move - drove - love; new - sew /səʊ/; tomb - bomb; youth - mouth;

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.