Uh... But... What?

Patrick Star knows /ʌ/ when he hears it.

The phoneme /ʌ/ is sometimes tricky for ESL students. I call it the caveman phoneme because it strikes me as a sound early man could have made when he emerged from the caves and began uttering his first words. It's a lazy sound, requiring little effort and seeming to originate from below, as if from the belly. It's the sound native English speakers make when pausing to think about what they're going to say next.

There is no one letter to represent this sound, so it is often mispronounced by newcomers to the English language because they tend to focus too much on the written word instead of the sound. When learning new vocabulary in English, always focus more ​on the sound of the word rather than the way it is written. 

I've found that the smallest words present the most problems and are often overlooked. So let's begin with them. Note the various ways the words are spelled but phonetically still have the /ʌ/ sound.

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of is pronounced /ʌv/
​​what /wʌt/
a and uh are both /ʌ/
an /ʌn/
us /ʌs/
from /frʌm/
just /jʌst/
cup /kʌp/
much /mʌtʃ/
want /wʌnt/
done /dʌn/
none /nʌn/
flood /flʌd/
blood /blʌd/
up /ʌp/
but /bʌt/
love /lʌv/
some /sʌm/
son and sun are both /sʌn/
month /mʌnθ/
one and won are both /wʌn/
once /wʌns/
come /kʌm/
run /rʌn/
does /dʌz/
truck /trʌk/
lunch /lʌntʃ/
drunk /drʌnk/
was /wʌz/

Bigger words:

country is pronounced ​/'kʌn-tri/
couple /'kʌ-pəl/
above /ə-'bʌv/
because /bi-'kʌz/
other /'ʌ-ðər/
mother /'mʌ-ðər/
southern /'sʌ-ðərn/
husband /'hʌz-bənd/
money /'mʌ-ni/
lucky /'lʌ-ki/
begun /bi-'ɡʌn/
custom /'kʌ-stəm/
study /'stʌ-di/
comfortable /'kʌmf-tə-bol/
understand /ʌn-dər-'stænd/
government /'ɡʌ-vər-mɛnt/
discussion /dɪ-'skʌ-ʃən/
production /prə-'dʌk-ʃən/
pronunciation /prə-nʌn-si-'e-ʃən/

Please listen to the audio and post your comments or questions below.