IPA reference · vowel
ø — close-mid front rounded vowel
/e/ with rounded lips.
Also called: German ö, French eu
How to make the close-mid front rounded vowel
Say the vowel of "say" without the glide, then round the lips while keeping the tongue forward.
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 ø, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
The lazy substitution — learners flatten it to "uh" and lose the rounding and the frontness.
What this means for learners
Contrasts with /e/ in German minimal pairs like *lesen* and *lösen*, so it is not merely cosmetic.
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 ø attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol ø make?
ø is the close-mid front rounded vowel. /e/ with rounded lips. It does not occur in standard English.
How do you pronounce ø?
Say the vowel of "say" without the glide, then round the lips while keeping the tongue forward.
Which languages have the close-mid front rounded vowel?
Among the languages covered here: French (deux, “two”); German (schön, “beautiful”); Norwegian (øl, “beer”).
What is the difference between ø and ə?
The lazy substitution — learners flatten it to "uh" and lose the rounding and the frontness.