uː vs ʊ Hearing pool and pull apart

How to hear the difference between pool and pull

Listen to the color of the vowel, not just its length. The uː in pool is tense, with the lips pushed into a tight round, as if blowing out a candle. The ʊ in pull is short and loose, with the lips only slightly rounded. The skill is hearing that difference every time, in every voice.

How uː and ʊ are made

For uː, the back of the tongue rises high and the lips push forward into a small, tight circle. The muscles are tense, and the vowel is usually long. Many American and British speakers also move the tongue forward, so their uː can sound brighter than a Japanese ウー (uu).

For ʊ, the tongue sits a little lower and the lips relax into a loose round. The vowel is short and dull, the vowel of put and book. It isn't a short uː: it's a different sound.

Why do pool and pull sound alike to Japanese speakers?

Japanese has one u sound, ウ (u), in a short and a long version, and katakana writes this pair that way: pool is プール (puuru) and pull is プル (puru), fool is フール (fuuru) and full is フル (furu). So Japanese learners listen for length.

Length is a real cue, but an unreliable one. English vowels shorten before sounds like t and k, so the uː in suit is shorter than the uː in sued, and in fast speech uː gets shorter still. In a study by Strange and colleagues (1996), Japanese listeners matched American uː, heard in single words, to a short ウ (u) more often (61%) than to the long ウー (uu, 39%).

What to listen for

Listen to the color. uː is tight and bright, with the lips pushed forward. ʊ is looser and duller, and sounds more relaxed.

Use length only within a pair. Pool is still longer than pull, and Luke than look. Don't compare across words: the uː in suit is shorter than the uː in pool.

Before an L, as in pool and pull or fool and full, the dark L pulls both vowels back and the difference shrinks, which makes these the hardest pairs. Listen to the length and tightness of the vowel before the L.

In two-syllable words like pooling and pulling, only the first vowel differs. The -ing ending is the same in both, so put all your attention on the first vowel.

When it matters: meaning

Mix them up and you get a different word. A pool is for swimming, to pull is to draw toward you. A fool is a silly person, full means filled up. A suit is formal clothing, soot is black dust from a fire. Luke is a name, to look is to see.

Some of the most common words in English have ʊ: would, could, should, good, look, book, took. Hearing it clearly helps in nearly every conversation.

How to practice hearing pool and pull

Use many voices. Many speakers push uː forward in the mouth, and some barely round their lips, so many voices teach you the difference that all of them share.

Check every answer right away, keep sessions short, and go in order: pairs ending in the same consonant, like Luke and look or suit and soot, then pairs before L, like pool and pull, then longer words like pooling and pulling.

The same tense-and-loose difference separates the i sounds of seat and sit. TellApart has seat · sit as a collection too.

How quickly you improve differs from person to person, so aim for short, regular sessions.