In an English test paper from a school, I notice this test:
which word has a different sound?
A- rule B- use C- chew D- juice
I told the student that I think the test is wrong, because they all share the same long (u:) sound.
Am I right?
P.S: The student later said that when they were in the yard checking their answers they asked the teacher and she told them C is the answer.
But the more I checked through at least four or five dictionary the less I could find an evidence as I saw all get (u:) sound.
P.S.2: This is not strange that even I noticed some minor mistakes in their English books which they are being taught.
The answer for me is B. I say Yewse, not oose. For the others, I say rool, choo and jooce. Although I think some people do say “chiew” instead of “choo.”
Did the question specify a different vowel sound? All of them have different sounds!
That said, I think “use” does use the same vowel sound as the others, it’s just preceded by an unwritten “y” consonant. I’d say that chew comes closest to having a different vowel sound, because I seem to insert a very slight little “eh” before the “oo” – sounding somewhat like cheh-oo, but I can’t tell if that’s just a remnant of the “ch” sound.
No, I don’t think they were looking for a difference to this extent, otherwise all of them with the sounds before and after the main sound (u:) got a slightly and delicately different sound. The main sound in the middle which all share (u:) I suppose!
Another vote for B here. The yoo sound in use is a different pronunciation. There is obviously no Y in the word so it is entirely the u that is sounding differently here imo.
Another problem with the test is that “use” has two different pronunciations. As a verb it’s you-z as a noun it’s you-s. My first thought was that this was what the question was asking. This is the word that has a different sound depending on how it’s used.
There’s a problem in that, as can be seen by the answers we already have, their pronunciations change by dialect and in some cases even by meaning of the word within the same dialect (see OldGuy’s answer), or by what word comes next, or…
What the question was aiming for was probably “in which of these four words does ‘u’ represent a different sound than in the other three?” - but the answer changes depending on which native speaker you ask. The person who prepared the test may have been thinking about received pronunciation (aka “her majesty’s English”, very common for ESL courses) or about their own dialect.
As for “juice,” many Thais seem to be taught to pronounce the U and the I separate;y. My wife has to think about it in order to keep herself from saying “joo-iss” like a lot of English-speaking Thais.
