Schwa Sound /ə/ Weak Forms /ə/ Unstressed Syllables

Dec 13, 2019

Schwa Sound /ə/ Weak Forms /ə/ Unstressed Syllables

This is another pronunciation video, but instead of going through some sentences from a previous premium episode, we’re going to focus on one aspect of natural pronunciation and this time that is the pronunciation of unstressed syllables and weak forms using the schwa sound /ə/ .

I went through this in P13 part 4, but it’s worth devoting an entire video to this.

I’ve decided this time to pay special attention to the schwa sound. 

This sound, represented by the IPA symbol /ə/ is extremely common. It’s probably the most common vowel sound in the English language. 

Why is it so important? 

Because English is a stress-timed language. 

In other languages, like Spanish for example which is a syllable timed language, each syllable in a sentence is given the same level of stress. If you want to speed up, you just make those syllables shorter - giving that machine gun sound that happens when Spanish speakers speak quickly, for example.

But English isn’t like that. It’s a stress-timed language, which means that the rhythm of English is based on certain stressed points in a word or sentence. It is these tonic stress points which dictate many other aspects of how a sentence is pronounced.

In order to speak more quickly, we need to reduce the space between these peak stress points in a sentence, and this means making other syllables in a sentence weaker → they get squashed.

Let’s take a sentence as an example. 

I’ve been producing the podcast at home in my flat for 10 years. Have you heard it?

First let’s work out where the main stress points are in the sentence. These are usually the big ‘meaning’ words - the words that carry the main meaning in the sentence.

I’ve been producing the podcast at home in my flat for 10 years. Have you heard it?

Now we want to say the sentence quite quickly and fluently, adding the rhythm on the stressed words. What happens to most of the other words?

I’ve been producing the podcast at home in my flat for 10 years. Have you heard it?

The other words get squashed a bit. They’re not pronounced with their full sound. How are these words squashed? Schwa sounds of course. 

I’ve been producing the podcast at home in my flat for 10 years. Have you heard it?

/əv bin/                     /θə/ /ət/                 /fə/ /həv/ /jə/

The schwa sounds like a dead vowel sound, like the end of the word ‘teacher’ or the second syllable in ‘London’, or the ‘a’ sound at the start of ‘amazing’.

(Say those sounds without using a schwa, then with a schwa)

Why is it called a schwa, Luke? 

When do we use it?

It turns up in these situations:

• Vowel sounds in unstressed syllables of words (like the previous examples)

Take these as examples: policeman, listen, potato etc. The underlined parts show where the schwa is used. In each case it’s an unstressed syllable.

• Weak forms of prepositions, auxiliary verbs, articles and other short parts of speech.

Some little words don’t usually get stressed in a sentence - they become like syllables in the sentence which are squashed - that includes things like prepositions, auxiliary verbs and articles. So these words are like the unstressed syllables across a while sentence. They’re also pronounced with a schwa sound.

Examples: There’s a new Star Wars film. Game of Thrones. Where have you been? I was waiting for you for ages.

Usually these little words are not stressed in a sentence. It’s the more meaningful words that carry the word stress usually. So these smaller words get squashed in order to say the sentence quickly and with rhythm and intonation.

So the schwa sound is used a lot in unstressed parts of words or sentences. This is extremely important because English pronunciation is all about stress. 

If you say to an English person - sandwiches - but you stress the wrong part “sandWICHes” then they probably won’t understand. Put the stress in the right place and it makes it all the more clear. SANdwiches. This also works across a whole sentence.

So let’s look at a few sentences. See if you can identify where the schwa sounds are. Then try to copy it like me.

I’ve tried to include various tenses, verb forms, prepositions and multi-syllable words in this exercise.

1. Have you been to see the doctor?
2. I was told to eat more bananas as part of a balanced diet.
3. You should have gone to bed a bit earlier.
4. Do you find it difficult to repeat all the sentences?
5. It was built at the start of the summer.
6. Were you planning to work on your English later?
7. No, I was planning to go to the cinema. 
8. They had better start as soon as possible.
9. Who does he think he is, talking to you like that?
10. How do you do? My name’s Luke Thompson.