Hood

Pronounce it as /hʊd/. Start with an initial [h] breathy sound, then a short, lax rounded back vowel like the word “foot” without the second syllable, and finish with a clear [d]. The mouth stays relatively closed, with the tongue high and back, and the lips rounded slightly before the final [d]. In careful speech you’ll hear a crisp final stop. Audio references: consult Cambridge/Oxford dictionaries for the IPA and slow, clear enunciation examples.

Two common mistakes are misplacing the tongue too far forward, producing a fronted vowel like /ɪ/ as in “hid,” and leaving the final [d] weak or devoiced in rapid speech. Corrective tips: keep the tongue high and back in a short, rounded /ʊ/ vowel; release the final [d] with a small burst immediately after the vowel; practice with phrases like “the hood of the car” ensuring a crisp stop after the vowel. Also avoid adding an extra syllable in casual speech; it remains a brief one-syllable word.

All three accents share /h/ onset and /d/ coda, but vowel quality shifts: US/UK/AU all use /ʊ/ here, but quality varies subtly; US often has a more lax, central-aligned /ʊ/, UK tends toward a slightly longer, tenser /ʊ/, and AU mirrors US but with less vowel length distinction in some rapid phrases. Rhoticity doesn’t affect this word since there’s no r. In connected speech, US can reduce to a shorter, faster /hʊd/, UK may maintain a slightly more rounded vowel; AU tends to be closer to General Australian vowel timing.

The difficulty lies in producing a concise /ʊ/ vowel in a closed syllable and delivering a clean final /d/ in rapid speech. The tongue must rise toward the palate without creating a schwa; the lips form a subtle rounding before the vowel, and then the exact, crisp release of /d/ requires precise timing—no voicing bleed. People often substitute /u/ or merge with /ɒ/ in non-native speech. Focus on short, tight vowel articulation and a strong, quick [d] release blocking vowel shortening.

A distinctive, word-specific nuance is the near-absence of any vowel length or stress signal in Hood; it is a single, fast syllable with primary focus on the tight, rounded /ʊ/. There’s no stress variance within the word since it’s monosyllabic; the tone can be slightly higher on a question or emphasis in contrastive focus. Ensure your jaw remains relaxed to avoid a tense /ɜː/ substitute, and maintain a compact tongue position for the /ʊ/ vowel.