The Schwa Sound: The Secret To American Pronunciation

Hey there. Welcome. This is me, Hadar, and this is the accents way. And I haven't gone live in a while and I know this is not a usual time for me to go live, but hey, I want to keep you on your toes. Listen up. Today we have something really, really important. If you watch my videos, you know that I always talk about the schwa sound. The schwa. Now what is the schwa? Today I want to discuss the schwa sound and talk about how to use it, how to pronounce it, when to use it, and why. It is so, so important for you as a non native speaker to be aware of this concept, of this sound. Because as I wrote in the title, it's the key to American pronunciation. It's the secret to really understanding and owning American rhythm and pronunciation. So hi to everyone who are, who is joining right now. Hello, hello. Hello. How are you? Tell me where you're from. There's a new feature where I can actually see and watch all the messages, all the chat messages after the video is over. So if I don't see it now, I will see it later. And you can always comment again on the video to get my response if you have more questions. Okay, so we have Saudi Arabia, Syria, Spain. Amazing. All around the world, France. Hello. Hello. Okay, so let's begin with talking about the schwa. The schwa is the most neutral vowel sound in American English. It's the most common sound that you hear. And it sounds something like this, Really neutral. As you can see, my jaw is relaxed, my lips are relaxed. I am not opening my mouth. So try it with me. Just drop your jaw a little bit and release a short sound. Very good. Okay. Make sure it's not an e or, or. Okay. It's just the sound that you're making. Let's take the consonant combination P and B like this. Try saying it. That sound between the p and the B is the schwa. Okay, Very quick, very relaxed. Now it's the most common sound in English, so you hear it all the time. Problem is, non native speakers don't always notice the schwa sound. And I'll explain why in a second. So the schwa sound appears in almost every word that has two or three syllables and more. Syllable is the small unit in a word. So for example, the word about has two syllables. The word controversy or controversial. Yeah, I got it confused. It's controversy or controversial. We have controversial. So we have four syllables here. Okay, so now that we know what syllables are, let's look at a simple word as opportunity. Opportunity. Every word has to have a primary stress. So before we talk about the schwa, I need to talk to you about the stress patterns in English. Every word has to have a primary stress. A primary stress is the one syllable that sticks out the most in the word opportunity. It would be two. Opportunity. Nutty. Okay. It's longer. It's higher in pitch. Sometimes it's hard to know what the primary stress is. Okay? I hear people saying it depends on your first language. But I have people. I have heard people saying, let's say engineer instead of engineer. I heard people say communicate. Communicate instead of communicate. So recognizing what the primary stress is is essential for clarity. It's even more important than getting the right sounds. Okay. Getting the right r sound or right th. So the primary stress of the word is the most important thing. Once you establish what the primary stress is, let's go back to the example. Opportunity 2. The 2 is the primary stress. Okay? So I put this the side, then the rest of the syllables. Now, every word has to have a primary stress. And just one. Okay? There's only one primary stress. So once you know what the primary stress is, and if you really struggle with it, just go to dictionary.com or any other dictionary and you'll see usually the syllable is marked with is marked in bold or it has an apostrophe right to the left of it. Okay? So that's the primary stress. I saw a question. How will we know where the primary stress is? You need to know the word. Because there are no rules. It depends on the word. I mean, there are patterns. And if you want to find out a little bit about the patterns, go to my video, how to pronounce long Words. Okay. Just Google. Just search in my. On my YouTube channel, how to pronounce long Words. And I talk about patterns of words, how to find the stress in words that have suffixes, endings. So that can definitely help. But let's assume that we know what the primary stress is, because this video is not about the primary stress. It's about the schwa, the weak stress. So once you establish what the primary stress is, the rest of the syllables either receive a secondary stress or a weak stress. Okay? A secondary stress, which means a pure vowel pronounced in an effortless way. So I'm not saying it. It's not opportunity. Right? I'm not stressing it so much. So in this case, the opportunity, the ah, is a secondary stress. I open my mouth for the oz and father opportunity. Okay? So the two is the primary stress. The. The ah is a Secondary stress. Because I actually make a pure vowel there. Ah. Also the E at the end is a vowel. T. Opportunity. Okay, It's a flat T as well. But the E at the end is a pure vowel. And since it's not the primary stress, it's going to be a secondary stress. I don't need to think about it too much just to pronounce it as is. Why do. But why do we talk about the primary. The secondary stress? Because once we establish what the primary stress, the rest of the syllables either receive a secondary stress, as we explained just now, or a weak stress, which is the schwa. This really neutral sound, for example, a per. Per. That's a schwa. It's not. There is no o here or not a pair. There is no e. A per. 2n. Here's another schwa. So it's not. It's N. T. Opportunity. Opportunity. Let's look at another example. Let's take the word holiday. Holiday. What is the primary stress? Think about it. Holiday. What is the one syllable that sticks out the most? So if you can write in the comments the. The part of the word that you think is the primary stress. I'll say it again. Holiday. So in this case, it takes time until you see the comment. So I'm going to answer it in the meantime, holiday here, the primary stress. Right, okay, so I see Holly, I need one syllable. Ha. Absolutely perfect, guys. So the high is the primary stress. By the way, how would you know if you're not sure you need to? You can just nod your head once when you say the word holiday. Right? You won't do holiday. That doesn't make sense. Let's take another word. Let's take congratulations. Congratulations. Try it, try to find the primary stress here. Congratulations. So I won't do congratulations or congratulations. Congratulation. I see ra. I see ko. No, listen, Congratulations. Congratulations. By the way, go to the. To my video how to pronounce long words. Because you'll see that when there is there are suffixes like, okay, tion. The primary stress is always going to be the one syllable before the suffix. Okay? In this case it's le. But you're right because the GR is a secondary stress. Okay, Congratulations. So I pronounce a pure vowel. Okay, Yeah, I see. Le. Congratulations. Going back to holiday, the ha is the primary stress. The day I'm going to tell you this, the day is the A as in day. That's a long vowel. I cannot reduce it. It's not hol. Duh. Okay, let's try to reduce it to a schwa. I can't. So I need to put a vowel there. It's probably going to be the secondary stress, the day. Let's say I read it phonetically, hali day. But do I really need that li in the middle? Is there a vowel there? Is it holiday like most non native speakers will pronounce it? Or can we drop the li to a schwa now try it out loud with me. Is it holiday or hol day? Holiday. Holiday. Does that make sense? So although there is a vowel letter there, I don't acknowledge it. It doesn't represent a pure vowel because it doesn't receive any stress. Not a primary stress, not a secondary stress. I don't have to pronounce the vowel there, and therefore it is reduced to a schwa. I mean, the schwa was there before. This is the way you need to think about it when you go about a word or when you go about how to find when and how to use the schwa. Now, I know they all tell you that there is a schwa out there, and they all tell you that this is a schwa. But how do you know when to use it? That's the most confusing thing. So now I'm teaching you how to find out yourself how and when to use it. Okay, so establish what the primary stress is despite. Discover it and then c. Understand that the rest of the syllables should have either a pure vowel that you cannot reduce or a vowel that you can reduce. And it's going to sound okay. If you can drop it to a schwa and it sounds okay and even better, then it's probably a schwa. Let's take the word congratulations. So the le is the primary stress. By the way, a primary stress is longer and higher in pitch. Lay shens. The. The suffixes at the end, shins are always reduced. Shins, Lations, Lations. The gra, some of you marked it as the primary stress. It's not the primary stress, but you're right. Cannot reduce it. We can say something like congreg, congratulations, congregation. Right doesn't sound right. Also, word with many syllables should have some secondary stresses. Okay, it's possible that all syllables are going to be schwa. It's not. Not in this case. So the GRA is a secondary stress. But a lot of speakers say con gra tu, le shens, Congratulations. Right? Does that ring a bell? Is this something you might say? If so, let me know in the comments below. So the lei is the primary stress. The grad is the secondary stress. But let me Tell you this. Do we really need the O at the beginning? Do we have to say congratulations. Or can we say king, grab, Congrat, Congratulations. And then instead of ju, do we need the julations, or can we say juh, Julations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Right, so we don't have to insert a vowel there. In fact, there is no vowel. It's reduced to this really neutral vowel sound. Congratulations. Notice what it does to your rhythm as well. I hope you're trying it with me. So it's not congratulations. Not every syllable receives the same beat. All of a sudden you have a long vowel, lay a medium length vowel, gra, and two short vowels. So we get this rhythm instead of congratulations, Congratulations, congratulations. What happens when you say congrats, congrats. Then the primary stress becomes gratz. Okay, Someone asked me about that. Grats. Congrats, congrats, congratulations. Modify, not modify. Ma. Primary stress. There is no I. We don't really need it. It's not modify, modify. Let's try to reduce the last syllable, see if it works. Change the word completely. Does it make sense? The endings, endings with the letter y, fi say e. Yes. And happy are always secondary stresses. Okay? So you can always remember that when you have an ending with a Y, you have a few options there. It's always going to be a secondary stress. You cannot reduce it. So it's a hint that maybe you can reduce something right before. Right? English likes it when there is like stress unstressed, primary stress reduced. Okay, so there is like this chain. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da da da. Okay, so modify. Modify. Let's take the word. I'll say it with my Israeli accent. Computer, Computer. So let's say it together. I'll say it once in English. Computer, what's the primary stress? Computer, let's nod together. Compute. Pug. Pew is the primary stress. So it's going to be longer and higher in pitch. Pug. But do we really need the o sound? Is it computer or can we say computer, Computer? Yes, can. There is no o. There is no e at the end. It's not Computer, computer. Schwa at the beginning, schwa at the end. So here's the thing. Remember this non native speakers tend to associate the vowel letter in a weak stress position with a pure vowel sound. So because we don't have schwa in our language, maybe you do, maybe you don't use it the way English does. But because we don't have it, we take this category of this weird sound and we fill it in with something. So where do we go? To find that something to the spelling. So we see in the spelling the letter I. And because we don't hear an I, we associate it with a pure vowel sound. So it's going to be he. Holiday. Holiday. Instead of holiday, if we see an O, we may say, oh, computer, connect. Instead of connect. Computer, compose. Okay, E may be an E. Management. Instead of management, two schwas at the end. Because we don't really need the vowel there. Management. Okay, so what happens is we add all these extra sounds that don't really exist. And not only it affects our pronunciation and it makes it harder to. To pronounce longer words. Okay. It also changes our rhythm completely. It makes things a little less effective. Okay, so what are the things that you need to do in order to improve? So first of all, understand that there is this sound called the schwa, this really neutral sound that exists in any other word or definitely in words that have three syllables and more and usually in every word that has two syllables present. Zent. Present pre is the primary stress. Zent is the schwa. Compare pair is the primary stress. Okay. Usually it's balanced. So there is a primary stress and then a schwa. If it's three syllables, a primary stress, a secondary stress, and a schwa, probably in the middle or something. Okay. Again, there are no rules. So don't. Don't follow exactly what I'm saying. I'm just giving you the patterns. So once you know that this is how it works, that you have a primary stress and some of the words are reduced, we don't pronounce every single sound, Then all of a sudden you'll start hearing it. And of course, when you start hearing it and perceiving it, then you can start making it. To make the schwa is really simple, just to create this really neutral sound. Basically, you don't need to do anything about. Here. It's a beginning around ahead. Sorry, I was just looking at the time. Arise. Ella. Elevator. Ella. Schwa. It's not elevator. Elevator. Bonus. Not bonus. Bonus. Ness. There is no vowel there. It's a schwa. So start hearing those things. Okay, Start listening. Look for the schwa. When you listen to other people speak, if you're trying to say words or you're trying to understand how to say certain words go by, like, do the analytical process that we did here. Find out what the primary stress is. Establish the primary stress. Make sure that you go higher in pitch and you prolong the primary stress and then reduce the sounds that are not essential. See what you cannot drop. Okay. That would be probably the prime. The secondary stress. Secondary stress is another word for a regular vowel. Okay? Not too stressed, but not reduced. And eliminate those sounds right there in between. Okay? All the small sounds. Okay, let's do this. So I'm going to say a few words and you're going to. And you're going to try to detect the schwa sound. So you can write it in the comments below or you can do it with yourself. Officer, you can't hear me because something happened to my voice. Okay. Okay. One, two, one, two. Is it back? Yes, Officer. Officer. F, Sir. Good. It's not. It's true that it's not O. So we're not pronouncing O. But the O turns into ah. That's the primary stress. Okay? Officer Fuh. Sir, that's the schwa. Recognize. Recognize. Promote. Write down so I can look at it after. Promote. Good. Recog. Cook. You're right. It's not recognized. Recognize. Good. It's not promote. It's promote. Memory. Memory. Syllable. What's wrong with my voice? Syllable. Mem. Very good, guys. Memory. M. Okay, Akash Yadav. M is not a vowel. It doesn't mean anything to me. And plus there are two M's here, so it doesn't. I can't tell what you mean. Memory. Syllable. It cannot be the sick because that's the primary stress. It's not. Syllable. Right. Syllable. I nod my head. Then it's the primary stress. L. L. Bull. Currently. Anna is suggesting the word currently. Currently. Where's the schwa here? Current. Runt. It's not currently. Logical. Logical law is the primary stress. Okay, I'll give you time to answer it. I'm going back to some of your answers here. Yeah. Currently the runt is a secondary stress. The cur. You write that there is no vowel here. But it's called the stir sound. Okay? And the stir sound is always stressed. It's the primary stress. So this is why it's not going to be. It's not going to be reduced. So what about. What was the word I said logical. Guys, how can the. Okay, so you. Some of you said lodge. Okay, you're right. Because you're hearing that it's not an O. So you're saying to yourself, it's probably schwa. But look at my mouth. La. It's. I'm really stressing it. If I need to open my mouth for it, it's definitely not a schwa. Law. Right? See how open it is? That's the asen. Father like holiday. La. J. Cole. The two other syllables are schwa's. J. Cole. Okay, it's not logical. La Je Schwa. Ko Schwa. Someone rode bicycle. Bi. Primary stress. Bi. S. Schwa. Ko. Another schwa. The suffix koh is always present pronounced with this, with a schwa sound. Bicycle. I have a video about how to pronounce bicycle. And you see me riding my bicycle with my daughters as I teach you how to pronounce it. So go check it out. It's fun. Okay? Someone asks how what is the schwa? Okay, so just go back and watch the video from the beginning because I explain what the schwa is. The schwa is a very reduced vowel sound that appears in almost every word in English. And it's a reduction of a sound that non native speakers usually make when actually there is no sound. Okay? Because people perceive English as or not perceive, but they think English is a phonetic language or they don't have enough information to know how to pronounce something, so they pronounce it as it's written. Okay? And since English is not a phonetic language and an o is not always an o or, okay, sometimes it's ah, sometimes it's a schwa, sometimes it's a long o, sometimes it's a cup sound, as in sun. Okay? So don't read English phonetically. Listen to what you're hearing and understand that there is this concept called the schwa, and try to use it, hear it, and then use it. So when you hear a word and you say, hey, there's a schwa, try saying it. Record yourself. Listen to your recording. See if you're actually making a schwa there or maybe you're inserting a new vowel. Okay? So let's wrap it up. The schwa is pronounced just like this. We find it in words like about, around, ahead, or recognize. It can appear in any, in the place of any vowel letter. A, o, u, I, E, or any combination of the three. For example, combination here is a schwa ion. So, and to recognize where the schwa is, we need to understand where the primary stress is and then to see what are the other syllables. See what you can reduce and what you cannot reduce. Okay? If you cannot reduce a certain vowel, it's a secondary stress, it's a pure vowel. If you can reduce it, it's a schwa. Okay? Now that's a thumb rule. That's a general rule. Of course there are exceptions. Of course, sometimes it's going to sound okay to say something with a schwa. I'm trying to think of an example. Comprehend for example, the hand is the primary stress, comprehend. So someone might say, comprehend, comprehend. And it may still sound okay, but in this case, the beginning is ah, comprehend. So this is where my rule doesn't always stick. Okay? But 95% of the time, it works. Find the primary stress. See what you can reduce, what vowels are essential to make sense, so the word still makes sense. And reduce whatever is not essential because it's probably a schwa or, or just go to the dictionary and you'll see this upside down symbol, upside down E. And know that this symbol represents this really neutral sound. And just apply it, okay? Apply it in those positions where you see the upside down E. Or when I talk about it in the videos, okay? I just treat it as if I just, like crossed out the vowel. I treat it as if there is no vowel whatsoever. Now, the schwa is also essential for intonation when it comes to phrases and sentences. And for that, I actually did a live video a few weeks back about American intonation. And wisely, I deleted it. It was very successful. I had like a few thousands of views in just a couple of days. And then I don't know what I was thinking. It was really early in the morning and it showed up twice in my app. And I was like, what is this thing? And I deleted it. And I had. I got emails from people. Why? Why did I delete it? It's my first video, my first full video about American intonation. This is why I actually made a regular video, not a live session about American intonation. And I'm going to release it next week. Also, just so you know, I'm planning a fluency challenge, a five day fluency challenge. And it's supposed to be really, really powerful, a lot of fun, and very, very effective. So stay tuned and follow my. Follow my channel. So if you're not subscribed, subscribe and click on the bell to get notification or make sure that your bell is clicked so you find out when I'm launching the challenge so you can join and practice your speaking skills and your fluency and definitely your pronunciation. Intonation. And we'll find ways to communicate with other speakers so you can communicate with each other as well. So that's the challenge. The intonation video is coming up. Okay, So a few things that you can look, look for in the next few weeks. That was a wonderful way to end the session with a car horn. Okay, guys, I'm going to. I have to go. So I can't really look at your questions right now because I have another lesson. Where's the schwa in bicycle? S. Cool. Two schwas. Bicycle. And I'm trying to. Can you explain about. What do you say that the, uh, in butter. Oh, when unstressed, becomes a schwa. Okay, just one quick question. The word butter has a cup sound. Butter, which is also called a stressed schwa, know that there is a pure vowel that is always in a stressed position. That sounds sort of like the schwa, but. But the mouth is a bit more open and it's stressed. Like butter, husband, country, so on and so forth. Okay, guys, I hope this was helpful. If it was, please share it with your friends. Subscribe and you can come on over to my website to check it out because there's tons of great content over there and those are the most mispronounced words in English. It's like an interactive list so you can click on. Click on it. And there's also a crash course that you can take. A free crash course. What else? I don't know. Come check it out. Thank you for joining me today. I hope the schwa is a little more clear now. If not, please keep on your conversation and your questions in the comments below the video. Have a wonderful, wonderful day and lovely weekend. It's coming soon and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.