The Schwa Vowel Sound

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Schwa : A mid central vowel /ə/ often used in an unstressed syllable .

Schwa is the Most Common Sound in Spoken English

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Linguistic research indicates that the most common sound in spoken English is the schwa vowel sound.

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The phonetic symbol for schwa is /ə/.

Schwa sounds like “uh”.

Why is schwa the most common sound?

The schwa is the most common sound because any vowel can have a schwa sound.

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Native speakers of English use the schwa sound to pronounce vowels in reduced syllables.

Spoken English has a lot of reduced syllables…there’s a reduced syllable in most multisyllabic words.

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That means we use əllodə schwa sounds when we speak!

Example of how we use schwa

Here is an example of how American English speakers use the schwa /ə/ sound.

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Let’s take my name… Susan…

When I say Susan the first syllable is stressed. The /uw/ has a long clear sound.

The letter a in the second syllable is reduced. That “a” has a schwa sound. It sounds like “uh”.

Phonetic symbols

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Using phonetic symbols my name looks like: ‘su:zən.

When I teach my accent reduction coaching clients about the schwa sound, I type my name like this: Suw→zǝn.


Learn to use schwa

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The schwa sound occurs in almost every word!

That’s why it’s the most common sound in English (even though most people have never heard of it).

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You simply must learn to use the schwa vowel sound if you REALLY want to reduce your accent!


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#Jafar_Ghaffari

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