How to Get a British Accent – Lesson Two – “The Schwa”

Hey, we met again! Welcome back to English Accent!

How to improve your accent sounds more like English.

Today we will explore neutral vowels/ə/

It sounds like schwa’s voice.

It is denoted by the phonetic symbol //Ə/

You will find it when you want to query the word pronunciation in the dictionary.

This is the most common pronunciation in English.

why? Well, one reason is:

Many words ending with the pronunciation of “er”

It is the Schwa sound.

Pronunciation is /Ə/

So, first of all,

Read with me and make sure you read the Schwa tones.

/Ə/

I believe you read perfectly, eh, great!

So, for this word, we pronounce it like this:

Ever / evƏ /

Better /betƏ/

Maybe you listened to the lesson about Deep Throat Pronunciation T and Formal Pronunciation T.

You can combine the contents of the two lessons you learned.

Deep Throat T and Schwa Tones:

Be’er /be’Ə/ (with Deep Throat T and Schwa Tones)

“be’er”, so it can be pronounced like this.

This is also the same:

“Wa’er” (with Deep Throat T and schwa)

Again, “er” sounds like schwa (/Ə/).

“Water” or “wa’er”, no matter what you say.

Eacher /ti:ʧƏ/ (with schwa tone)

Doctor /dɒktƏ/ (with schwa tone)

Adventure / ƏdventʃƏ/ (with schwa tone)

So no matter which word ends with “er”,

Have to send a Schwa tone (/Ə/)

Americans made R’s voice very strong, for example:

Americans may pronounce as:

Ever /evƏr/

Better /betƏr/

Water /watƏr/

I am very exaggerated, but

They made R sounds, and we sent Schwa sounds (/Ə/)

Not only when a word ends with er (this is the case),

The same applies when syllables are weakly read.

E.g:

In this word, where is the stress?

Yes, on “-lice”,

“po-LICE”

Stress is here,

So weak syllables

“po-” was read out with Schwa sound.

/pƏ/-/li:s/

Police

Next: Where’s the stress?

Of course it’s here, on “Ta-“

So this uses the Schwa sound

Taken /teɪkƏn/

/Ən/

Taken (take away, take away)

This: Where is the stress?

So, Schwa is here.

/Ə/

/Əbaʊt/

About (About, related)

This, especially used in the classroom

I hear it feels like “pencil” (with i sound)

wrong! Where is the stress?

PEN-“

So, “PEN-cil”

-cil” contains the schwa sound.

So, let’s review them again:

Repeat reading with me so that you can compare with my pronunciation

and so,

Ever / evƏ /

Better /betƏ/ or /be’Ə/

Water /wɔːtƏ/ or /wɔː’Ə/

Teacher /ti:ʧƏ/

Doctor /dɒktƏ/

Adventure / ƏdventʃƏ /

Police /pƏli:s/

Taken /teɪkƏn/

About /Əbaʊt/

Pencil /pensƏl/

OK, this is the course of our school today about Schwa sound.

Join us tomorrow to make your English accent higher!

Goodbye!

Non-automatic Chinese subtitles, translated by Zhong Xueyang