The Schwa Sound
Out of all the vowel sounds the schwa is the most common sound English. The schwa sound is a relaxed, but quick vowel pronunciation that is similar to the ‘short u’ sound. The schwa sound’s function is for unstressed syllables so that they can be said more quickly. This is needed for the rhythm of the spoken word so that the stress remains on the stressed syllables. The thing that is difficult to understand is that the schwa does not have a standard pronunciation to memorize.
We will talk about the schwa in terms of where you will hear it. There are only two types:
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with a multi-syllable word on the unstressed syllable
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in a function word with the reduced vowel sound
Unstressed Syllable In Multi-Syllable Word
Not every syllable is given emphasis when you have a multi-syllable word. There are three types of stress for each syllable:
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stressed syllable
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unstressed
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secondary stressed syllable (not common)
Every word in English has a single stressed or main syllable. This is where you have the main stress or what is commonly referred to as intonation. For most of the rest of the syllables they are unstressed and in some cases they have secondary stress. Secondary stress is not that common.
Example: Engineer
One word that has all three levels of stress is engineer. The main stress is on ‘neer’. The secondary stress is on ‘gi ’. The unstressed is ‘en’.
en• gi• neer
The Spelling Of Schwa
One of the problems with the English language is that words do not always sound as they are spelled. With many of the multi-syllable words this is common. With the schwa it is based on syllable stress instead of the spelling of the word. As you continue to learn English, recognizing stressed syllables will help you to understand where the schwa is used in the multi-syllable words. Here are some examples of words with the schwa sound. Note that we added the non vowel ‘y’:
|
a in a word |
sofa capable |
|
e in a word |
present enemy |
|
i in a word |
incredible experiment |
|
o in a word |
harmony oppose |
|
u in a word |
focus support |
|
y in a word |
vinyl syringe |
