Is there a variant of ü?

[mclarty]

What you say about pinyin u and ü works fine for me. But I want to ask about a variant on ü that I sometimes hear, for example in John Pasden's tone drills. It seems the speaker has a more extreme pronunciation of ü, so that 军 rhymes with the English word queen. Even 去 there rhymes with the English tree. Is this a regional thing? Or do you think I am just mis-hearing those speakers?

[Nabeshima120]

Yo your right it's regional. I used to chat with this lady from Sichuan province and when I said 去 she would always correct me and say what sounded to me like "chewey" . I never had anyone else correct me for that one. I just wrote it off as some way she said things. Now there is also a different stronger ü like for characters 語 or 魚 or 女 but that's another thing.

[Nabeshima120]

And 運 does kinda rhyme with queen. Kind of.