IPA reference · vowel
y — close front rounded vowel
/i/ with rounded lips — a front vowel with back-vowel lips.
Also called: French u, German ü
How to make the close front rounded vowel
Say "ee" and hold it. Without moving the tongue at all, round the lips as if for "oo". If the tongue slides back you get /u/ instead.
This sound does not occur in standard English. That means there is no word you can say to find it by accident; you have to build it from the articulatory instruction above and check it against a recording.
Languages that use it
Sounds it gets confused with
Most pronunciation errors are not random — they are a substitution of the nearest sound the speaker already owns. These are the usual substitutions for y, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
The universal English substitution, which turns French *tu* into *tout*.
What this means for learners
Present in French, German, Dutch, Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, Swedish, Norwegian and Mandarin — one of the highest-value vowels to master.
Teaching this sound
Describing a sound in words gets a student roughly half the way there. The other half is hearing it produced correctly, immediately after producing it incorrectly, with both versions available to replay. That is the argument for recording during the lesson rather than after it: the student leaves with your model of y attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol y make?
y is the close front rounded vowel. /i/ with rounded lips — a front vowel with back-vowel lips. It does not occur in standard English.
How do you pronounce y?
Say "ee" and hold it. Without moving the tongue at all, round the lips as if for "oo". If the tongue slides back you get /u/ instead.
Which languages have the close front rounded vowel?
Among the languages covered here: French (tu, “you”); German (über, “over”); Turkish (gün, “day”); Finnish (hyvä, “good”).
What is the difference between y and u?
The universal English substitution, which turns French *tu* into *tout*.