The Schwa Sound in Daily British Pronunciation (Modern RP)

the schwa sound arguably the most important sound to British English some say it's 30 to 35 percent of British pronunciation in southern RP or modern contemporary RP which is what I teach so today I'm giving you some of the most common words the words we use the most in daily English involving the schwa sound oh that's the sound by the way I'm not just making strange noises [Music] hello everybody it's me Elliot from ETJ English I hope you've been doing well so as I said the schwa sound it's really really important to British English and

we use it in many different situations at the end of words the beginning of words in the middle of words and we use it to replace vowels weak forms or function words so it's probably the most important part of my job to teach my students how to use the schwa sound so I'm going to give you a little bit of information today if you need more information and you want to master the British accent then obviously there is an online course of mine which you can join and talk to me directly with voice-messaging on whatsapp

but in this lesson we're going to do a brief overview and learn some of the most important words in British English involving the schwa so firstly how do we pronounce the schwa sound well it's very very simple actually it's the most relaxed sound in British English all we do is open the mouth in a very relaxed way like this tongue in the middle of the mouth not really doing anything just forget about your tongue it should be just relaxed in the middle of your mouth not too far forwards not too far back not too high

not too low relaxed be relaxed like the schwa and the sound is a copy after me so let's try it at the beginning of words first just so that we can understand how to join from the sound into consonants for example about about so as you can imagine this is a very common word in British English we say it quite a lot and we're starting with the schwa sound now the first thing to remember a syllable with the schwa sound is not stressed so because this word is two syllables about that means that the second

syllable is going to be stressed because the schwa is at the beginning about about about the British accent we're learning we never pronounce the letter R at the end of words so that means we're going to just pronounce a at the end now anytime you have an e at the end of a word for example doctor teacher adventure there's always an up at the end in North American English you would hear her most of the time so teacher let's try some more words where the schwa is at the end and don't forget we're not pronouncing

the are at the end of the word there's no it's just a whatever whatever whatever or never sometimes we say never ever never ever what I like to call my evening meal so the big meal I have in the evening dinner dear no dinner but we also have the schwa sound in the name of the meal that we have in the morning what's that called it's called breakfast Breck first foot foot first now this is difficult because we have a consonant cluster at the end which comes after the schwa and then we have so what's

happening here is we're going from an s into a T what you need to do is create yes and then cut the S out with a quick T breakfast breakfast uh first breakfast my favorite meals of the day are breakfast and dinner how about the word understand can you guess where the schwa sound is in this word and stand understand oh is it the schwa sound so it must be in the middle of the word understand now we could add another schwa sound into this word and say understandably doubly understandably understandably and this is a

great tip when you say the schwa faster it sounds better now the reason why is because the schwa is not stressed it's a very very relaxed vowel and it only appears in unstressed syllables so it's good to say it fast understandably okay when you say it nice and fast it sounds better now please don't get the schwa confused with the sound at the beginning of this word under so we have up and we have up for the up sound we're opening the mouth a little bit more and the tongue is curling slightly so it's becoming

an a instead of than under under ah okay slight difference there how about the word definitely definitely definitely so oh definitely now I'm not producing the T after the schwa sound so I'm saying definitely but it's okay to say definitely if you prefer to pronounce the T either or is okay but when we're talking fast generally that T might be dropped in this word and it will become definitely rather than definitely but you can do either and remember the schwa sound oh definitely oh but now the most important part and for me this is where

this 30 to 35 percent of the schwa sound appears in weak forms so how do we pronounce this word - but if the word is not important in our sentence if it's what we would call a function word we would pronounce it as - for example I went to school to school we don't say to school usually we will pronounce the - is - because it's not stressed in our sentence so we're going to relax it it's just a grammar word it's not really important so instead of saying I went to school we might say

I went to school to school what about this word so we might say now usually it's pronounced as for in its strong form but we could pronounce it as fer with the schwa sound so F and then just a schwa OH so let's try the schwa a few times in this sentence I had pasta uh at the end of pasta I had pasta for dinner fer schwa sound dinner we've already learned that I had pasta for dinner I had pasta for dinner so what about the word here V right that's how we would pronounce it

before a vowel so if the next word begins with a vowel the earth the Apple for example but if we have this word before a consonant we pronounce it as the again th and then schwa so this is tricky get your tongue between your teeth and then just open your mouth and relax your tongue push your back slightly the the dog the cat actually where is my cat the word you yes that's right the word you can be pronounced as yeah where do you want to go later where do you even Do's being pronounced with

the schwa sound here where do you want to go later so where do ya do you want to go later four times four four four times we're having the schwa sound there where do you want to go later so the schweiz everywhere okay and that is my final point the schwa is everywhere this lesson has only touched the tip of the iceberg right so if you need to learn more about the schwa you definitely need some training because as I said we need to understand when we do and when we don't pronounce it there are

specific rules which you can learn and those are all available in my course and of course you can ask me questions whenever you want if you join my course through voice messaging and text messaging on WeChat or whatsapp whenever you want it's a British pronunciation accent course that's what I am a specialist in that field and it will train you to reduce your accent and replace it with an accent basically the same as mine a contemporary Southern RP British accent so if you're interested you can click the link in the description below and join my

course and I'm really looking forward to meeting some of you who joined other than that I've make videos here for free on YouTube they're here to help you with your pronunciation as much as I can outside of my real teaching time with my students in my course so thank you everyone who has been supporting this channel and giving me feedback now I have a question for you how many words can you list in the comments below which include the schwa sound I want to see I want us to have the best list ever in this

comment section of words involving the schwa sound give me as many as you can and we will see if we can make one big list which perhaps I'll give you in a future lesson there you go perhaps it's everywhere per perhaps I need to stop just remember the schwa is always chilled out it's always relaxed it's laid-back so if you are struggling with pronouncing it just remember you just need to have no stress chill out be cool like the schwa and idea that sounded really cheesy thanks very much for watching guys I will see you

next time take care bye [Music]