IPA phoneme /ʌ/

In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic symbol /ʌ/ corresponds to the monophthong vowel sound in words like "strut", "nut" and "bus".

When this sound is unstressed it sounds /ə/, and conversely, a stressed /ə/ (impossible in American English, very rare in Received Pronunciation) normally sounds /ʌ/; however for many speakers [ʌ] and [ə] are clearly different and any of them can be either stressed or unstressed.

Since /ʌ/ always is stressed and /ə/ never is, in theory there is no confusion if only one symbol is used, and some dictionaries follow that rule. In this case /ˈstətər/ for "stutter" must be interpreted as [ˈstʌtər].

Common words
Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /ʌ/ include the following:
 * with "u": bun - bus - but - butter - cut - fun - gun - luck - lunch - run - summer - sun - Sunday - thunder - truck - tunnel - under - up - us
 * with "o":
 * with "ou": country - couple - cousin - double - southern - touch - trouble - young
 * homophones: none - nun; one - won; some - sum; son - sun;

Spelling anomalies

 * with "a": was /wʌz, wɒz, wəz/ - wasn't /ˈwʌzənt, ˈwɒzənt/ - what /wʌt, wɒt, wət/
 * with "oe": does (verb) - doesn't
 * with "oo": blood - flood
 * with "ough": enough - rough - tough

/ʌ/ and /ɜː/
See IPA phoneme /ɜː/ &mdash; /ɜː/ and /ʌ/.

Variant pronunciations

 * accomplice /əˈkɑːmplɪs, əˈkʌmplɪs/
 * from /frɒm, frʌm/
 * twenty /ˈtwɛntiː, ˈtwʌntiː/
 * what /wɒt, wʌt/


 * anybody /ˈniːbɒdiː, ˈniːbʌdiː/
 * everybody /ˈvriːbɒdiː, ˈvriːbʌdiː/
 * nobody /ˈnəʊbədiː, ˈnəʊbɒdiː, ˈnəʊbʌdiː/
 * somebody /ˈsʌmbədiː, ˈsʌmbɒdiː, ˈsʌmbʌdiː/

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
Spelling is a big interference for Spanish speakers, and they may rhyme "null" with "full" and "pull": /nʌl, fʊl, pʊl/ pronounced [nul, ful, pul].

See Pronunciation exercises: /ʌ/ vs /æ/ § Spanish