IPA phoneme /j/

In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic symbol /j/ corresponds to the semivowel sound in words like "you", "yellow" and "yes". This sound is called yod /jɒd/.

Common words
The sequence /juː/ is very common in English and it has special spellings: "u", "ue", "eu" and "ew". Before other vowels /j/ is normally spelled "y".


 * /j/ as "y"
 * Kenya - yard - year - yellow - yes - yesterday - yet - yield - York - you - young - your - youth
 * beyond /bɪˈjɒnd, biˈɒnd /


 * Before /uː/. Main article: IPA phonetic sequence /juː/
 * "u" as /juː/: accumulate - Cuba - cute - distribute - stimulate
 * "ue" as /juː/: argue - continue - hue - value
 * "ew" as /juː/: few - Matthew - nephew
 * "iew" as /juː/: interview - review - view


 * Before /ʊə/
 * "ur" as /jʊə/: cure - curious - pure - security


 * Before /ə/
 * "u" as /jə/: accumulate - failure - formula - popular

Other cases
 * "ia" as /jə/: California - Spaniard
 * "ie" as /jə/: Daniel
 * "io" as /jə/: behavior - behaviour - million - onion - opinion

Uncommon words

 * canyon /ˈkænjən/
 * cognac: /ˈkɒnjæk, ˈkəʊnjæk/
 * emu /ˈiːmjuː/
 * fjord /ˈfjɔːrd/
 * hallelujah /ˌhælɪˈluːjə/
 * lasagna, lasagne, /ləˈzænjə/
 * pinata, piñata /pɪnˈjɑːtə/
 * savior, saviour /ˈseɪvjər/
 * yacht /jɒt/

No /j/
Many words that have "y" in their spelling don't have a /j/ phoneme in their pronunciation. This in practice means there might be subtle differences in syllabification or a difference in vowel quality. For example "kayak" is /ˈkaɪ.æk/ and not. In some cases there are alternate pronunciations, as in "lawyer". Note, however, that the realization of some of these vowels may contain a [j] sound, as in royal pronounced [ˈrɔjəl]. See IPA phonetic symbol [j]. The pronunciation shown by Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary is shown in square brackets.

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
While /j/ is very similar to the "i" in the Spanish diphthongs "ia", "ie", "io" and "iu", most Spanish speakers pronounce the initial /j/ in words like "yes", "young" and "university" like /dʒ/, i.e. they do not distinguish between "yet" and "jet" or "use" and "juice". This problem can be solved by making them notice that several Spanish words have initial /j/, such as hiato or ion, which are different from or.

Conversely, Spanish speakers tend to use /j/ before a vowel where English uses /iː/ (or /ɪ/ in some accents). For example vegetarian might be pronounced instead of  blending the last two syllables into one.