Pronounce English Accurately

Video Text

Vowel 5: The schwa /ə/

Listen to these phrases:

'a cup of tea'

'this is for you'

'a piece of cake'

'I'm going to the doctor'

'tomorrow - leave it until tomorrow'

Throughout all these phrases one vowel sound is recurring - / ə/.

Here it is transcribed wherever it appears:

'a cup of tea'

'this is for you'

'a piece of cake'

'I'm going to the doctor'

'tomorrow - leave it until tomorrow'

This vowel is so important that it is the only one with a name of its own. It is called 'schwa' and is the commonest pronunciation of unstressed syllables, regardless of spelling.

It's the commonest vowel sound in English, and can be spelt with any of the vowel letters.

Schwa has an entirely neutral quality. The tongue is in mid, central position, and the lips are in a neutral posture. It often replaces the other vowels in unstressed positions.

So a word like 'photograph' has a full vowel, /əʊ/, in the first syllable, but in 'photography', this first vowel changes to /ə/ - 'photography'.

Schwa is an extremely weak sound and is a real key to sounding like a native English speaker.

Most non-native speakers continue to pronounce full vowels where native speakers have schwa sounds and find it extremely hard to sound native as a result.

Examples of schwa are the first syllable in

'above'

'ago'

'arrange'

'collect'

'connect'

'objection'

'upon'

It's the last syllable in

'better'

'doctor'

'Doctor' has /ə/ at the end, exactly the same sound as 'banana', with no hint of rounded [o] and no /r/ sound.

The moment that final syllable is given any hint of a full vowel value, the moment any tiny of post-vocalic /r/ creeps in, of course communication is not hampered, but we know immediately that the speaker is a foreigner: [dok.tor].

'teacher'

'picture'

'senior'

'failure'

'similar'

'soldier'

'fashion'

'problem'

'album'

And schwa is both the first and last syllable in

'develop'

'commander'

'observer'

'photographer'

'banana'

The use of the schwa vowel for almost all unstressed syllables is possibly the single most important aspect of sounding native-like in English.

German, Norwegian and Dutch have a schwa sound, and I'm sure many other languages do, but typically non-native speakers tend to give all the syllables a fuller vowel - [ba.na.na] instead of /bə.ˈnɑː.nə/ for example.

It's important to make schwa sounds because this is the root of rhythm and intonation in English. The use of schwa in the unstressed syllables makes the stressed syllables in longer words stand out, and the use of schwa in short, usually grammatical words, makes the more important WORDS stand out.

If the vowels are all given their full value, everything sounds equally important, which means nothing sounds important, because nothing stands out.

Using schwa in unstressed syllables also makes it possible to speak faster than if we have full vowels - which helps us to sound fluent.

Many words beginning with 'de-' have schwa:

'decide, deride, divide, divine, demand, delight, design' - these can all be pronounced with either /də-/ or /dɪ-/ and no native speaker would notice the difference.

But when it means the opposite of the root verb then it's /diː-/:

'deconstruct, decouple, de-coke, de-escalate, degrease'.

And the same applies to 're-':

'relate, resign, revise, rely, renowned, repugnant, refrain, reply'

but not when it means 'to do something again' as in

'rethink, reshape, readmit, realign, recycle, revisit, re-imagine, replay'.

In words like these it is /riː-/.

Practice sentences.

Identify which vowels in these sentences are schwas. Some of them may be either /ə/ or /ɪ/ - identify those too. Then say them, making sure the vowels are reduced every time. In the lesson resources you will find a PDF version you can print out to work on.