More Reduced Sounds

There are two sounds that look similar,

but sound quite different.

One is the tense vowel , pronounced ooh,

and the other is the soft vowel ,

whose pronunciation is a combination of ih and uh.

The sound is located far forward in the mouth and requires you to round your lips.

The is one of the four reduced vowel sounds that are made in the throat:

The most tense, and highest in the throat is ,

next, slightly more relaxed is ,

then , and deepest and most relaxed is the neutral schwa .

For the reduced semivowel schwa + R, the throat is relaxed, but the tongue is tense.