Hello everyone, welcome back to pronunciation with Emma. In this video we're going to be
looking at the schwa. The most common sound in the English language. So in this video
I'm gonna (going to) show you how to produce this sound, we're gonna look at it in some
words, and then I'm also going to show you how to sound a little bit more British when
it comes to the end of words and then we'll have a look at some sentences together and
practise. So to make this sound you basically do nothing. Absolutely nothing with your mouth,
with your jaw, with your lips, your tongue, you do nothing, you completely relax everything
and you just produce sound. Now if you stress it too much or you make it too long you're
gonna get different sounds like "uh" which we're gonna look at in another video and that
"ehh" sound if you make it too long. So be careful. It's very short and relaxed, and
always always unstressed. Let's have a look at some words. So the first one we have is
about. About. Now ever though I have that A, the spelling A there in the word, careful
that you're not pronouncing like an "a" as in apple, okay? It's not A-bout, but it's
very soft and very weak. A-bout. A-bout. About. The next one has the schwa in the first position
and the final position of the word. We have America. America. So that first one, A-me-ri-ca.
Then another schwa at the end. America. And the next one. Alone. Alone. Careful, but A-lone,
I hear this a lot. A-lone. That's too open, relax your mouth more. A-lone. A-lone. Alone.
Medial position words, enemy. E-ne-my. So it's in that second syllable there, in the
middle. Enemy. Enemy. Problem, lem. No lEm. It's too open. ProblEm. Problem. Lem. Problem.
Now this one I hear pronounced as sUpply quite a lot, again, cause people are influenced
by the spelling. But it's not SU, SU. Suh. Supply. Supply. Final position. Sofa. Sofa.
Again, people get influenced by the spelling and this word is actually present in quite
a few languages, and so they tend to just transfer the pronunciation from their own
language to English and they say something like sofA, sofA. So it's a very open A sound.
But in English it's not the case. Sofa. Fa. Sofa. This is a nice one, thorough. Th-rough.Thorough.
And the last one, mother. Mo-ther. The. Make sure you get that TH as well. Mother. Now
I get a lot of messages from students asking "Emma, what is the biggest difference between
British English and American English?" and I would say that it's that pronunciation of
the R sound, particularly at the end of words, so that's what we're going to go through now.
So what I've got here are five different endings and I'm gonna pronounce some words which have
these endings in British English, so you can listen and repeat. Starting with -er we have
water. Water. Not wateR or wateR, that would sound more American. Wa-ter. Water. Brother.
Bro-ther. Brother. The -ar ending. Calendar. Calen-dar. Calendar. Regular. Not regoo. Careful,
reg-ya.
Reg-ya. Regular. La. Regular. The -or ending. Doctor. Doc-tor. Careful it's not dorTOR or
docTOR. I hear this a lot because this word is present in a lot of other languages as
well. In English, British English, that ending is with a schwa. Doctor. Ta. Doctor. Visitor.
V. Make sure you get that V as well. Visitor. Visi-tor. -Our. Colour. Col-our. Colour. Humour.
Hyoo, not hoo. Hyoo. Humour. Ma. Humour. And the last one -re. Centre. Cen-tre. Ta. Centre.
Metre. Metre. Ta. Metre. Now let's have a practice with some sentences. My sister had
a problem with the sofa. My sister had a problem with the sofa. My sister had a problem with
the sofa. The teacher answered the question. The teacher answered the question. The teacher
answered the question. You can also pronounce answered as answered, so you could say the
teacher answered the question. There's no problem with that. If you do choose to go
with the aa sound in answered then this is very typical RP. It's very typical from the
south. As I'm from the north, I still pronounce it with that A sound. So that's the end of
another pronunciation video. I hope you've enjoyed this one and you've learnt something
new. If you have then don't forget to like this video, also subscribe to my channel if
you haven't already and you can also press the bell icon to receive notifications as
to when I post new videos. I hope you have a lovely week and I will see you next lesson.
Bye bye.