The /ʌ/ sound in English
/ʌ/ is the short U (STRUT) — a vowel of English. Here is how to make it with your mouth, what usually goes wrong, which words carry it, and the sounds it gets confused with.
How to make the /ʌ/ sound
Keep the tongue central and slightly low with a relaxed, neutral mouth — like a stressed, fuller version of the schwa.
Practise it on its own before you put it in a word: hold the position, make the sound, then release. Once it is stable in isolation, drop it into the example words below and keep the same mouth shape — most of the difficulty of an English sound disappears the moment your tongue and lips are physically in the right place.
The mistake learners make with /ʌ/
Pronouncing the spelling instead of the sound: "u" in "cut" is not /u/, and "o" in "love", "money", "done" is also /ʌ/.
If that description sounds like you, work through the contrast pairs further down: hearing the difference reliably always comes before producing it reliably.
Words with the /ʌ/ sound
Start with the classic three — cut, love, money — then work through real words that contain /ʌ/. Every word below has a full pronunciation page with audio and a sound-by-sound breakdown.
/ʌ/ versus the sounds it gets confused with
These are the sounds nearest /ʌ/ in the mouth, and the ones that swallow it when a learner is not careful. Learn each pair as a pair:
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əDo almost nothing: leave the tongue in its neutral resting position, mouth slightly open, and make the shortest, weakest possible vowel. Say “cut” (/ʌ/) and “about” (/ə/) back to back until the two stop blurring together.
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æDrop the jaw noticeably, push the front of the tongue low and forward, and spread the lips — it is a flat, bright, fairly long American vowel. Say “cut” (/ʌ/) and “cat” (/æ/) back to back until the two stop blurring together.
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ɑːOpen the mouth wide, drop the tongue low and back, keep the lips unrounded, and hold it long — the doctor-says-"ahh" vowel. Say “cut” (/ʌ/) and “father” (/ɑː/) back to back until the two stop blurring together.
Questions about /ʌ/
- How do you pronounce the /ʌ/ sound?
- Keep the tongue central and slightly low with a relaxed, neutral mouth — like a stressed, fuller version of the schwa.
- What words have the /ʌ/ sound?
- cut, love, money, one, other, what, some, company, does — all contain /ʌ/.
- What is /ʌ/ called?
- /ʌ/ is the short U (STRUT). It is a vowel in the English sound system.
Stop looking words up one at a time
One sound at a time is slow. PHONO puts the IPA above every word of whatever you are reading — in your browser, in a PDF, in any app — the moment you select it. An offline pronunciation dictionary, US and UK audio, one hotkey.