The consonant /j/ in words that have letters -ew

The secret in recognizing the correct pronunciation of words that contain ‘ew’

When I was in secondary school, it was speculated that “you” should be ‘correctly’ pronounced as JUU, just because the phonemic transcription was /ju:/. Most of us students started pronouncing the word just like that. You wouldn't blame us, would you? We were in ‘a village school’ and any supposition by the seemingly most intelligent/brilliant student, or teacher, among us, must be highly upheld and respected. We knew no better.

In 2016, it was a year after I’d graduated from secondary school, and I knew my spoken English was almost terrible; so I started doing some personal study and research on English vowels and consonants. I bought and read every available textbook on oral English for schools and colleges. I eventually found out that the teacher or student must’ve believed that /j/, a consonant sound, is pronounced as a letter ‘j’ in the English alphabet. There are letters of alphabet and there are English phonemes—vowels and consonants alike. They ain’t the same.

In 2018, when I began my classroom teaching as an English teacher in Ibadan, I asked my students whether any of them them that (probably) came from the village had a similar experience like mine. Lo and behold, some of them replied in the affirmative. Some of them said that their English teachers had told them that “you” was pronounced JUU and also “yes” was JES.

/j/ is one of the four approximants we have in English. The other three are /w/, /r/, and /l/. They are all voiced, which means that there is a vibration in the vocal chords when you pronounce them.

/j/ is pronounced as yaa or yiii. Just pronounce it like that, as if it were an English word. Say yaa or yiii. Try it. Try it again. Yes, that’s it!

Let’s take it further. Imagine someone pierces your skin with a sharp pin, I’m sure you’re going to let out a cry like —iu—. Yes, something like that. Just pronounced the ‘iu’ together. This time…slowly and then stress it a bit.

Or imagine you see someone eating Fufu, that pounded yam with body odour, to express your utter disgust at them or disapproval of it, just like I would have done, you would cry —IU—(or EW) and some crease would form on your face.

That’s it. Understood? Now pronounce ‘you’ by combining ‘yii’ plus ‘iu’. Like ‘yiu’. Again? Try it again. Yes! That’s it!! You got this!

Now this is a really big deal. Most words containing ‘ew’ in English, as in dew, knew, few, cute, etc all have iu in them. Dew sounds as diu, just pronounce it like that. And it is, therefore, phonemically transcribed as /dju:/. You’ve just got a trick. When a word in English sounds iu, it definitely has the consonant /j/ in it and a long vowel /u:/. Both combined together, then, gives us iu in words like few /fju:/, cute /kju:t/, knew /nju:/—fiu, kiut, niu. You gerrit?

However, there are exceptions to this rule. There are some English words that contain ‘ew’ but they do not sound as iu. Rather, they have either a long vowel /u:/ standing alone without /j/, or have a completely different pronunciation.

Some of these words are sew, juice, crew, brew, flew, blue, blew, suite, fluke, threw, etc.

Sew has the same pronunciation as sow. Don’t be shocked. Lol. Threw is pronounced just like through. Sweet and suite have the same pronunciation. Blue and blew are pronounced /blu:/, not /blju:/. There is no iu in flew, crew, and brew. They are pronounced /flu:/, /kru:/, and /bru:/ respectively.

I am sure you have learnt so much today. Remember that practice makes perfection. Go forth and speak good English.

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Yours in English,

Francis