To pronounce the sound /u/, you need to round your lips and stick them out. You need to lift the center of the tongue and push it a bit forward. The English sound system doesn’t have an exact equivalent of this sound, but the closest sound can be found in the word “new”.
/o/ and /u/
It is important to distinguish between the sound /o/ and /u/.
When you pronounce /o/ you need to round your lips very closely and the back of the tongue should be lifted.
When you pronounce /u/, you don’t have to round your lips as tightly and you lift the center of your tongue and push it a little forward. Sound /u/ feels more frontal in that sense. Compare:
It is important to pronounce these two sounds correctly because some words will have different meanings. Compare the words “do” (toilet) and “du” (you).
Sound /u/ can also be short and long. Let’s practice long sound /u:/:
Jul (Christmas)
Gul (yellow)
Sur (angry)
Tilbud (offer)
Natur (nature)
Bruke (to use)
Kul (cool)
Now let’s practice short /u/:
Munn (mouth)
Full (full; drunk)
Frukt (fruit)
Gull (gold)
Ull (wool)
Gruppe (group)
U pronounced as /o/
Sometimes we pronounce U as /o/ when it is a short sound. This happens often when U is before -k with other consonant; before -ks, -kk, -ng, -nk or m. This means that you don’t always have to force yourself to pronounce /u/.
Bukser (pants)
Sukker (sugar)
Juks (cheating)
Dum (dumb)
Munk (monk)
Nummer (number)
Tung (heavy)
Note that we also pronounce lunsj with /ø/ sound. See our lesson on how to pronounce /ø/.
Practice
1.Mark the word you hear:
2. Listen and repeat the following sentences:
Tor bor i Sunndal.
Skal du på do?
Mor går på en tung tur.
3. Drag and drop the words into the correct boxes:
Cringing a bit on the do versus du test! And I’m sure there are no jokes based on this at the expense of hapless foreigners! If there aren’t, there definitely should be!