/ æ / sound vs / ʌ / sound

/ʌ/ cup

The body of the tongue is relaxed and set low in the mouth. The sides of the tongue lightly touch
the bottom teeth during the formation of the sound. The jaw is kept in a neutral position, and the
lips are relaxed.

The overall relaxed nature of the formation of this sound is why it is commonly used for the
pronunciation of the vowel sound of an unstressed syllable. The 'short i' /ɪ/ sound may also be used
in an unstressed syllable, but short u /ʌ/ or schwa /ə/ are more common.

Practice:

First practice the sound æ. Then put your tongue up and back a little. Close your mouth a little.

Your tongue should rest in the middle of your mouth. ʌ is a short, relaxed sound.

Sound 1 Sound 2

cap cup

bag bug

sack suck

ban bun

rag rug
Spelling:

The sound / ʌ / is usually written with the letters: u or o.

u bus, cup, much, under, lunch, husband, funny, button, rubber, cut, cutting, run,
runner, running, sun, sunny, study, us, duck, just, up, uncle, unless, upper,
understand, unlikely, unusual

o wonderful, nothing, month, mother son, once, color, other, money, love,
something, done, none, come, cover, government, come, front, from, monkey,
discover

Other spellings:

ou country, cousin, young, enough, touch, trouble, couple

oo blood, flood

oe does, doen’t