The /ə/ Sound

This is the /ə/ sound. It is a Vowel sound and it’s technical name is the ‘Mid-Central Vowel’. It is often called the schwa sound but that refers to the symbol that is used it is nothing to do with the phonetics of the sound.

Remember that the key to pronunciation is physical and the name tells us about how the sound is made physically. In this case your tongue is in the middle and the center of your mouth.
All vowels are made through the mouth and are voiced so you vibrate your vocal chords to make the sound.
It is similar to the /i:/ sound, but it is shorter.
/ə/ not /ɜ:/
To produce the sound put your tongue in the middle and in the center of your mouth and make a short voiced sound.

This video is part of our series on phonetics and pronunciation for learners of English as a foreign language.

Phonetics is the science of pronunciation. It can be helpful for people learning English because one of the most difficult things about the language is the spelling and pronunciation. English is not very phonetic and as a result the same letters are often pronounced in many different ways in different words.
The IPA helps by providing a way to write words as they are pronounced. The normal alphabet only has 26 characters but there are 44 different sounds that are used to pronounce words. As well as that, most word in English originate from other languages like Greek, Latin and French to name just a few and in many cases the the language of origin influences how the word is pronounced.
The IPA provides a symbol (phoneme) for each sound so the correct pronunciation can be written or printed in dictionaries.

This video along with the others in our pronunciation series helps language learners to hear the correct pronunciation and also to know how to produce the sound of each phoneme.

[keegster]

The schwa is always cool. The schwa is never stressed. Be like schwa.

[duncanlanceoliver]

Thanks Gavin for getting me to look this up anyone else here because of gavin for AH crew

[NoxDaemon]

This video helped me a lot for understanding the Schwa sound. I'm an english pedagogy student from Chile, thank u so much guys

[bquillaguyd]

It's funny to see this guy, because he looks like he has profound love and deep pride for his language, yet i can see he is able to discern that the language phonetics are messed up.

[erinlee]

Thank you for this video! This is by far the most practical lesson that I can share to my student on the /ə/ sound. All the other videos I've seen don't explain it clearly or are too complicated to understand.

Thank you again! ;)

[skyrose]

Watching achievement Hunter and I just had to know lol

[OsamasStory]

The vowel that native English speakers make when they say “fun” “run” “ bun” “hun” “duck” “mug” “rug” “bug” “tuck” “buck” “luck” is called “fut-ha” in Arabic, it means opening and it comes in the form of a diacritic. It’s usually written on top of the consonants and I think you kind of mixed it up with the schwa!

[austinbryan]

Yet it itself sounds differently depending where its placed. In the beginning it sounds like "uh" in the middle it sounds like, "ih" and at the end it sounds like "er." You would think the pronounciation letters wouldn't have the same flaw as the normal ones, but you'd be wrong.

[patrudugowru]

i have a big problem with spelling, then my father suggested me learning phonetics. Then on i started watching your videos . Now i feel better with my spelling . thanks^_^

[emilym]

Thanks guys! great video. I have a phonetics exam coming up in a few days so this helped a lot.

[simplebudd]

I've been meaning to tell you how I enjoy your lessons - with very clear explanation as well as accompanying graphics. I don't subscribe or get addicted to many English-teaching channel. But yours is one that is so professional and pleasant to watch. All the best to you while I keep watching and learning.

[English_Lessons_Pre-Int_Interm]

I am here to say hello to all my students who have got a home task to watch this video. It is just 5 minutes, not much time, and it will be useful for your pronunciation, and you will sound much better. You will often need this sound at your Speaking activities. You will sound like a British queen, or a BBC presenter, and many happy people will say thanks to your English tutor. This little sound is a big upgrade for your Pronunciation and Speaking. Remember, however, that there are two variants of English; American and British.

[World_Theory]

Actually, I'm using this to learn lojban. I was trying to try to figure out the lojban vowel “y”, which is said to use this sound.

And this actually gave me my epiphany! It all came down to the instructions to make a “short guttural voiced sound”. The “short” part was especially important. I had tried using a sound clip from Wikipedia, but it was sustained longer.

…I hope hope my epiphany is actually just that: an epiphany, and not a mistake. That would be embarrassing.

[Jacob_Love]

Well it's a good thing youtube is more informative than Ryan asking google

[mac-ivgs]

"You'll need to vibrate your vocal chords to make the sound"

Ah yes the floor appears to be made out of floor.

[moralesjourneyman]

Since it's basically an inverted "e" you can't really fault people when, for example, they write "grammer" instead of "grammar." It comes more naturally for Europeans since they are familiar with French and Greek and Latin. For the rest, you have awesome tutorials like this on YouTube.

[EnglishwithJoe]

The schwa is the most common sound in English, yet most native speakers don't know they use it :)

[silviacortes]

Thank you very much for your videos, I follow them regularly and I am learning a lot. However I have some doubts. The phonetic transcription of the word "could" in the dictionary is / kʊd /.... in this video you say that it is / kəd / ... In the same way you say "us" /əs/ while for the dicctionary "us" is /ʌs/...and to finish you say "family" /ˈfæməlɪ/ and the dictionary says /ˈfæmɪlɪ/ Considering that I trust more in what you say than in what the dictionary says, could you explain these differences, please?

[tsiounurissnyun]

Your video is very good. i'm thank you for your teach.
Your lecture is very helpful to me.

[AlanlaCelestina]

“Could” is pronounced with a schwa? I thought it was with an “U” sound like in pull.