In this American English pronunciation
video, we’re going to learn how to
pronounce the schwa vowel sound.
This vowel is always unstressed. The
mouth position is a lot like the UH as in
BUTTER vowel, but that vowel can be
and usually is stressed. But just like that
vowel, everything in your lips, jaw, and
neck should be relaxed for this sound.
Just slightly drop your jaw to make this
sound. The trick is to keep everything
else relaxed.
Let’s look at the vowel up close and in
slow motion.
It’s possible to make this sound on its
own with just the slightest jaw drop. But
in actual words, you will likely see a bit
more jaw drop, like here, on the word
‘sofa’. Lips relaxed, cheeks relaxed,
tongue forward and relaxed.
As I said, this vowel can only be in an
unstressed syllable. All other vowel and
diphthong sounds can either be stressed
or unstressed. So the schwa will always
be really fast and low in pitch. Uh, uh.
Sofa, uh. Ability, uh.
The schwa goes with the syllabic
consonants L, M, N, and R. That means
when you have a syllable with a schwa
followed by one of these consonants, you
don’t need to make the schwa. It gets
absorbed by the next sound. For
example, the word ‘father’: th-rr, th-rr.
Just go from the TH sound right into the
R sound without trying to make a
separate schwa. Father, -ther.
The schwa: always unstressed. Uh, sofa,
uh, uh, ability, uh.
Example words. Repeat with me:
Allow, extra, data, again, visa, about.
I hope this video helps you understand
this sound. That’s it, and thanks so much
for using Rachel’s English.