# pronunciation of love



## comdanilo

Hi guys,
I'm very intrigued with the pronunciation of the word "love"
I have the impression that there are people who speak that way:
/lɔːv/ or /lɒv/ and not that way /lʌv/
Am I correct?


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## ewie

Hi Comdanilo.  I've never heard _either _of those pronunciations [vowels as in _boil_ and _doll_].  In the North of England (where I am) the word is pronounced /lʊv/, though [vowel as in _book_].


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## chamyto

I didn´t understand anybody pronouncing /lʊv/  ( louv??).
I usually pronounce /lʌv/

According to the LONGMAN EXAMS DICTIONARY (2006) , it is usually /lʌv/


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## Alxmrphi

What vowel sound is that one chamyto? 
I'm really going to have to learn IPA soon.


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## chamyto

This one   /ʌ /?


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## Alxmrphi

Yeah I'm trying to find out but the internet doesn't seem to want to help me right now.


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## chamyto

I´d rather  open a new thread....with /ʌ /, 
don´t you think ?


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## Alxmrphi

Well it's all based on the pronunciation of this one word (love), so it's very relevant in this thread

Here

Are the two symbols being compared that with the examples "book" and "bud" ?


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## chamyto

I open a new thread about it


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## Alxmrphi

chamyto said:


> I open a new thread about it



I'm not sure why, but ok.
There are two ways to pronounce* book*, and I think we're talking about these two vowel sounds for love.. where I am from there are two very different ways to say "oo"... but only one for 'love'... 

L*o*ve (b*u*d) (same sound)

book (said like pp *took *and also like *food*)


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## chamyto

but not /lʊv/


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## Loob

As far as I know, there are two main BrE pronunciations of "love":

RP (and other southern English dialects of BrE) /lʌv/
Northern English dialects of BrE:/lʊv/


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## Alxmrphi

If you go to the link I mentioned earlier, the example that is like 'bud', then it is.
Loobs got it!
Yes it_* is*_ /lʊv/


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## chamyto

Alex_Murphy said:


> I'm not sure why, but ok.
> There are two ways to pronounce* book*, and I think we're talking about these two vowel sounds for love.. where I am from there are two very different ways to say "oo"... but only one for 'love'...
> 
> L*o*ve (b*u*d) (same sound)
> 
> book (said like pp *took *and also like *food*)



I disagree with _food _/fu:d/


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## Alxmrphi

You need to make sure you are understanding what I am saying, I only gave one example of 'food' and I said the way we say food, the vowel sound also exists in 'book'. I'm referring to the 'oo' sound in food, some people here use this same vowel sound in 'b*oo*k'

I didn't say *"book, like tood & food*", I said "*book, like took.... and differently, also like the way we say food*"


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## chamyto

Alex_Murphy said:


> If you go to the link I mentioned earlier, the example that is like 'bud', then it is.
> Loobs got it!
> Yes it_* is*_ /lʊv/ /lʌv/




I´ve looked up my dictionaries and it´s only written /lʌv/


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## Alxmrphi

To clarify, I don't understand IPA so I'm not sure exactly what these vowel sounds are.
If you want to quote anyone and say it's wrong, you should to Loob because she understands the IPA, I don't !
I am trying to explain using other similar words.

I think you have to understand there are MANY different ways to say words in England, sometimes more than 4/5 depending on where you are from, I wouldn't correct any native that knows IPA if they tell you something.


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## chamyto

So you mean that pronounciation varies from one side an another...

I have the sensation that my English books and dictionaries aren´t true at all


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## chamyto

What´s IPA ?


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## Alxmrphi

chamyto said:


> So you mean that pronounciation varies from one side an another...
> 
> I have the sensation that my English books and dictionaries aren´t true at all



Yeah, even in areas like mine Liverpool........ me and my Dad have different ways of saying book / cook ...
They are 'notorious' examples though, I'd suggest asking for RP pronunciation, and learning that, but other examples are not wrong, just different



> What´s IPA ?



International Phonetic Alphabet...  this: /lʌv/


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## GreenWhiteBlue

I don't know IPA, but the symbols are not showing up as anything other than little boxes on my screen anyway.

In my pronunciation, "love" rhymes perfectly with "of", and has the same vowel as "cut", "run", "ton", "duck", and the first syllables of "rubber" and "cover".


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## panjandrum

chamyto said:


> What´s IPA ?


For a lot more information, see the sticky at the top of this forum.
6. Pronunciation and International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notation - here.


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## Alxmrphi

IPA was what you were using earlier, I wanted to let you know I didn't understand it so tried to use different examples, but I will try to learn it as it comes in handy quite a lot on here.


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## comdanilo

Very interesting! I'm surprised, because for example, in this pronunciation, I can't hear /lʌv/, but I hear /lɔːv/

The pronunciation of David1 
David1

and this pronunciation:
this


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## panjandrum

The links do not work easily for me.
Try this:
http://www.forvo.com/word/love/

(Interesting site, by the way.  I'll include it in the sticky )


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## Alxmrphi

That's exactly the site we need!!!
Perfect for pronunciation comparison


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## arturolczykowski

Why, for example, the word 'Surrey' which have the same sound as 'love' sounds more like 'sorry' then? I checked a few dictionaries and all of them, and this website above also, for my ear have the sound which seems to be slightly different than that in 'love'...


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## Alxmrphi

arturolczykowski said:


> Why, for example, the word 'Surrey' which have the same sound as 'love' sounds more like 'sorry' then? I checked a few dictionaries and all of them, and this website above also, for my ear have the sound which seems to be slightly different than that in 'love'...



It sounds the same because it's virtually spelt the same, the difference between the words is the vowel sound, which is the one we use for 'love' as well..

What makes it sound like Surrey are consonants, not the vowel sounds.


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## mplsray

chamyto said:


> I´ve looked up my dictionaries and it´s only written /lʌv/


 
If your dictionary represents British English pronunciation, then it likely includes only the version with /lʌv/ because that is how the word sounds in Received Pronunciation (RP), the prestige accent in Great Britain.

If your dictionary represents American English pronunciation, then it likely includes only the version with /lʌv/ because all American accents have that as the pronunciation. If there is an American accent which gives the word another pronunciation, I am unaware of it.


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## Forero

There are lots of American ways to pronounce the vowel in _love_, but they are all allophones of the same phoneme (like the vowel of _bud_).  I have heard something like /lɔːv/ and something like /lɒv/, but usually the vowel will be unrounded or followed by a schwa.

Actually, if you pronounce /lɔːv/ and /lɒv/ without lip rounding, you get something very similar to an American accent and fairly similar to a British accent, respectively.  I have heard singers turn the /v/ into almost a /w/, so it is not hard to imagine a singer coming out with /lɔːv/ or /lɒv/.

Did you hear these pronunciations in a song?


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## ewie

Wikipedia's page on the *IPA used for English* is not bad at all.


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## natkretep

chamyto said:


> So you mean that pronounciation varies from one side an another...
> 
> I have the sensation that my English books and dictionaries aren´t true at all


 
You need to remember that dictionaries do not record all possible pronunciations. The 'British English' pronunciation given is RP, which has many (but not all) the features of Southern English. It does not record very regular pronunciations from Northern England, Scotland or Ireland.

So someone from Yorkshire would say /lʊv/. But even here, there might be variation. Some Northerners do not round their lips very much, so it might sound a little bit like /ləv/. An Irish speaker might have a vowel sound closer to the rounded vowel sounds you indicated in your first post. I also hear the rounded vowel pronounciation from people from Spain or Brazil too.


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## Phil-Olly

Loob said:


> As far as I know, there are two main BrE pronunciations of "love":
> 
> RP (and other southern English dialects of BrE) /l?v/
> Northern English dialects of BrE:/l?v/



Actually there are three, and the one you don't mention is rapidly gaining ground.  I don't know IPA either, but would best describe is as a kind of emphatic schwah.  Found in Wales, North-East England, and most of the Midlands.

Not just 'love', of course, but all the short 'u' sounds, as in 'bus', 'cup' etc. (but not 'put')

In this pronunciation 'love' rhymes with r.p. 'perv' (short for pevert), i.e. where the 'r' is not pronounced.


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## natkretep

Phil-Olly said:


> Actually there are three, and the one you don't mention is rapidly gaining ground. I don't know IPA either, but would best describe is as a kind of emphatic schwah. Found in Wales, North-East England, and most of the Midlands.
> 
> Not just 'love', of course, but all the short 'u' sounds, as in 'bus', 'cup' etc. (but not 'put')
> 
> In this pronunciation 'love' rhymes with r.p. 'perv' (short for pevert), i.e. where the 'r' is not pronounced.


 
Yes, this was what I was referring to when I gave the /ləv/ pronunciation - I heard this from someone from Manchester.


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## liv_einziger

natkretep said:


> You need to remember that dictionaries do not record all possible pronunciations.


 
That happens because in dictionaries what we have is phonological transcription, not phonetic. A phonetic transcription is a specific transcription which describes a specific pronunciation, like the examples everyone gave. Phonological transcription is a generalization and does not consider variation - that's why you will only find one example in the dictionary. Usually, phonological transcription is written between slashes (/.../) while phonetic transcription is written between [...] (brackets??).

There are, though, dictionaries that use phonetic transcriptions, choosing the pronunciation of a certain region. As an example, I have a French/Portuguese Portuguese/French dictionary which, for the words in Portuguese, describes their pronunciation as that of Rio de Janeiro speakers (which differs is several sounds from that of the speakers of the place where I live).


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## comdanilo

Forero,

"Did you hear these pronunciations in a song?"

No, I heard in the site: www.forvo.com


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## Wilma_Sweden

liv_einziger said:


> Phonological transcription...


A.k.a. phonemic transcription. Phonetic transcription (within square brackets) usually has a lot of extra diacritics added to give a level of detail required for die-hard phonetics professionals when comparing different dialects etc, e.g. the Sound Comparisons site mentioned elsewhere, which shows a small but select number of words pronounced in different dialects, with sounds and IPA.

It's probably just as well that most English dictionaries only show phonemic transcription, and only for the two major variants, i.e. BE/AE, or else us poor ESL:ers would get completely and utterly confused!  

Chamyto, do trust your dictionary, if you want to find out how words are pronounced. Whenever there is a choice between BE or AE, choose one or the other consistently. That way, there is a good chance that most native speakers will understand you. If you want to learn more about different UK dialects, for example, there is a good site(*) for it here, which contains chunks of fluent speech from different dialects rather than single words. There are no IPA transcriptions, but some of the samples do have text transcription.

If anyone knows of a similar site for US dialects, please let me know!

/Wilma

(*) The British Library's 'Sounds familiar?' web site
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html


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## chamyto

Thank you Wilma


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## comdanilo

Wilma,

"If anyone knows of a similar site for US dialects, please let me know!"

www.forvo.com


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## Loob

Sound advice, Wilma


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## Wilma_Sweden

comdanilo said:


> www.forvo.com


Sorry, comdanilo, I probably didn't make it very clear that I meant similar to the British Library site that contained fluent speech from different dialects rather than single words, in order to hear dialect-specific prosody, too. Thanks for the suggestion, though, the forvo site is certainly useful for comparing single word pronunciations.



chamyto said:


> Thank you Wilma





Loob said:


> Sound advice, Wilma


Thank you, too - I'm glad if my ramblings are of use to someone... 

/Wilma


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## NevenaT

So love is definitely never pronounced with /ɒ/? I know that /ʊ/ is a feature of Northern dialects, but what about /ɒ/?


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## se16teddy

NevenaT said:


> So love is definitely never pronounced with /ɒ/?


Never say never. I am sure I have heard this pronunciation. Perhaps especially in the West Midlands of England.

I don't know whether it is a traditional local pronunciation, or a more recent "hypercorrect" form that originated with people unsuccessfully emulating a higher-status pronunciation.


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## Oddmania

I've found this map ("The vowel sound in _sun_ across England") on Wikipedia, suggesting that /ʌ/ is produced as /ɒ/ in a part of Kent.


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