IPA reference · vowel
ʌ — open-mid back unrounded vowel
The stressed counterpart of schwa in English.
Also called: wedge, caret, strut vowel
How to make the open-mid back unrounded vowel
Central-back and open-mid with no lip rounding. In most modern English accents it is closer to central than the symbol implies.
English reference points: cup, luck, strut. If you speak English natively you already produce this sound — the work is recognising it and placing it where the target language wants it.
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 ʌ, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
Nearly identical in quality; the difference in English is stress.
Korean ㅓ versus ㅗ is exactly this contrast, distinguished by rounding.
What this means for learners
Northern English accents lack this vowel entirely, using /ʊ/ instead — so "cup" and "put" rhyme.
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 ʌ attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol ʌ make?
ʌ is the open-mid back unrounded vowel. The stressed counterpart of schwa in English. In English you can hear it in: cup, luck, strut.
How do you pronounce ʌ?
Central-back and open-mid with no lip rounding. In most modern English accents it is closer to central than the symbol implies.
Which languages have the open-mid back unrounded vowel?
Among the languages covered here: English (but, “but”); Korean (서울, “Seoul”).
What is the difference between ʌ and ə?
Nearly identical in quality; the difference in English is stress.