pronunciation

In ago, compared to love, the sound is the same, but unstressed and briefer in ago.
This sound, called the schwa sound, is also found in stressed form in words like but and cup, month and son.  Stressed, it is also called "short u".

In bird, the ir together gives a new sound unlike the sound in ago or love.
So /^/ in /^r/ is entirely different from /^/ in other contexts. Usually "er", "ir", and "ur" all have this same "R-colored schwa" sound (her, term, shirt, bird, dirt, hurt, fur), as does "ear" followed by a consonant (pearl, earth, learn, heard), and "or" preceded by "w" (work, worm, worth).

These comments apply to American English.

CJ

Hi,

1/  Stressed, it is also called "short u".

It = the sound in "ago". Right?

2/

In bird, the ir together gives a new sound unlike the sound in ago or love.
So /^/ in /^r/ is entirely different from /^/ in other contexts. Usually "er", "ir", and "ur" all have this same "R-colored schwa" sound (her, term, shirt, bird, dirt, hurt, fur), as does "ear" followed by a consonant (pearl, earth, learn, heard), and "or" preceded by "w" (work, worm, worth).

How can I pronounce this sound? (/^/ in "bird", "her", "worm", "learn"...)?

How to distinguish this sound with  /^/ in "love" ?

Quoc

I also pronounce "young" and "love" with the same vowel. The reason that "love" has an "o" in Modern and Middle English is because:

"The pronunciation of written o in son, love, come, etc. is due to Norman spelling conventions prohibiting writing of u before v, m, n due to the graphical confusion that would result. (v, u, n were identically written with two minims in Norman handwriting; w was written as two u letters; m was written with three minims, hence mm looked like vun, nvu, uvu, etc.)" http://www.bibliodata.com/article/orthography.htm