تقویت لهجه ی بریتیش - صدای شوا

Hi again guys. Welcome back to our series on the British accent. How to improve your accent sound more British?

Today we’re looking at the schwa. It sounds like uh and it’s represented in phonetics as this symbol /ə/. You’ll see that in dictionaries when you’re trying to find the pronunciation of words. This is the most common sound in the English language. Why? Well, one of the reasons is any word which finishes with an “r” sound, is pronounced with the schwa, the uh sound.

So firstly repeat after me, make sure you have the schwa sound right. Uh. I’m sure you are perfect. Well done. So this word. We pronounce it like “eve”, “bette”, maybe you joined the last class with the glottal “T” and the true “T”, you can combine what you’ve learned from these two classes. The glottal “T” and the schwa, “Be’e”, “Be’e”. So it could be pronounced like that. The same here “Wa’e” or “wate”. Again the “er” pronounced like a schwa “wate” “wa’e”. However you want to say it. “teacher”, “doctor”, “Adventure”. So any uh sound at the end of the word is pronounced with the schwa.

Americans, they pronounce the uh very strongly. For example an American would pronounce it “ever”, “better”, “water”. I’m exaggerating but they pronounce the “r”, we pronounce the schwa.

Not only when a word finishes with a uh sound, it also goes for the weak syllables in a word. For example, in this word where is the stress? Well, it’s in “lice”, “Police”. the stress is here. So the weak syllable “po” is pronounced again with the schwa. “Po lice”. “police”. The next one. Where is the stress with this one? Of course it’s here. With “Ta”. So this one takes the schwa. “Taken” “en” “Taken”. This one, where’s the stress?

So here is the schwa sound. uh. “about”. This one very commonly used word in particularly classrooms. I hear it like “Pensyl”. No. Wher’s the stress? “Pen”. so “pencil” “cil” has the schwa sound. So let’s go through them one more time. Repeat with me so you can compare your pronunciation with mine. “Ever”, “Better”, “Water”, “Teacher”, “Doctor”, “Adventure”, “Police”, “Taken”, “About”, “Pencil”. That’s our class today on the schwa. Join us tomorrow to improve your English accent any further. Bye.