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I’m wondering how exactly do you make a “w” and “y” sound in English. These two are considered the glides of English, but what exactly makes it a glide? What are the characteristics of a glide sound? For instance, is there a difference in sound between “yi” and “ii.” I know those are not actual words, but someone once told me that a y sound is basically an i sound in the beginning, quickly followed by the main vowel of the word. So for the word “you,” it’s “iu”. Same for w, except it’s an “u” sound instead. So is there a difference between “wu” and “uu”? I never really thought of the y and w as two vowels joined together. Kinda just treated it as one particular kind of sound, though hard to describe.

Glides (or "semivowels") are sounds that are not phonetically dissimilar from vowels but behave like consonants—that is, they cannot constitute the nucleus (peak) of a syllable.

From a purely articulatory point of view, [j] and [w] are just short occurrences of [i] and [u] (except that in [j, w], the tongue may be slightly closer to the roof of the mouth) and can be alternatively transcribed in IPA as [i̯] and [u̯]. But most linguists consider English [j] and [w] as distinct sounds (phonemes). The reasons are primarily phonological, which include:

• When at the beginning of utterances, east, Uber, etc. are often preceded by a glottal stop. This doesn't happen with yeast, womb, etc.


• We say "a year", "a week", etc., not "an week", "an year".


• They cannot be stressed like vowels.


• They behave like other approximants, /r/ and /l/, in that they become voiceless when preceded by a word-initial voiceless plosive, as in cue and queen (compare crew and clean).


• They can precede almost any vowel, as in Yiddish, wit, yet, wet, yap, wax, yacht, watch, wood, young, one... Analyzing [j, w] as vowels would entail adding a considerable number of diphthongs and triphthongs into the phonemic inventory of English.

It is possible to analyze the non-syllabic components [ɪ, ʊ] of the diphthongs /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/, etc. as /j, w/, but since /j, w/ otherwise do not occur after vowels, these diphthongs are usually considered distinct phonemes rather than sequences of two phonemes. (Phonetically, however, there is little to no difference between [j, w] and non-syllabic [ɪ, ʊ] of diphthongs. The non-syllabic components of English diphthongs are often conventionally transcribed with [ɪ, ʊ], but the actual quality of the sounds varies depending on accent and may be closer to [i, u].)

By experiment I find that "i'yi" and "u'wu" are quite different from "i'ii" and "u'uu".

The emphasis on the second syllable in "i'ii" is produced by a change in pitch accompanied by a glottal stop. The same applies to "u'uu".

When I say "u'wu" I can detect a near closure of the lips on "w".

When I say "i'yi" there is a definite lifting of the tongue towards the alveolar ridge.

In both cases there is a constriction of the airflow, either by the lips or the tongue.

As an experiment I tried doing both of these actions at once. It produced a sound that I've never heard in English! It sounded quite a lot like a jaw harp (jews harp) - you can listen to these online.

The glides y,w are phonetically very similar to the corresponding vowels i,u in English, but they are shorter and more constricted. Since "ii" and "uu" don't exist in English, you really can't compare how they differ from "yi" and "wu". The suppose tense vowels "i" and "u" in English are phonetically lower and more diphthongal compared to [i:], [u:] as encountered in numerous other languages, and a narrower phonetic transcription would be [ɪj, ʊw]. It is not unusual for yi,wu in other languages to be phonetically indistinguishable from [i,u], especially if [i,u] in the language are closer to the cardinal vowels [i,u].