Pronounce English Accurately

Video Text

Vowel 7: Long /ɜː/

/ɜː/ is the vowel sound in 'bird'.

It's very much the same as No. 6, /ʌ/, except that it's a long vowel and that was a short vowel.

As for /ʌ/, the tongue and lips are in neutral position. There is no lip rounding.

Let's hear the difference between No. 6, /ʌ/ and No. 7, /ɜː/:

No. 6: bud

No. 7: bird

No. 6: hut

No 7: hurt

shut - shirt

cud - curd

bun - burn

No. 7, /ɜː/ is spelt 'er', 'ir', and 'ur', and 'or' after the letter 'w'.

In English words which were once pronounced with different vowels, as they still are in Scottish-accented English, all coalesced to the one /ɜː/ vowel.

Examples are:

'er': 'her, verb, prefer'

'ir': 'fir, first, third, bird'

'ur': 'fur, urn, turn, church'

w + 'or': 'word, work, worth, worm'

Spelt 'our': 'journey, courtesy'

Spelt 'ear': 'earn, learn'.

There are quite a lot of words in which long /ɜː/ and short /ʌ/ are contrastive.

Examples are

'berg - bug'

'burst - bust'

'curb, kerb - cub'

'hurt - hut'

'girl - gull'

As always, a voiced consonant after the vowel makes the vowel longer; a voiceless consonant makes the preceding vowel shorter:

'bird - Bert'

'heard - hurt'

'berg - berk'

'hers - hearse'

Practice sentences

Learner Bernie was the third person to reverse the hearse.

Could you confirm that the flat is fully furnished.

Firstly, as it is an emergency, the surgeon will cut a circle in your shirt.

No. 7, /ɜː/