50. The most important sound in English: [ə] - schwa, as in "the"

By Olga Smith

The schwa is the most used sound in English. It is important to sound fluent and natural. In our experience, almost all students of English make many mistakes with the schwa. Let’s have a look at this sound and sort it out once and for all! The schwa is highlighted in all examples below.

5 most important characteristics of the schwa [ə] are:

1. It is the shortest sound in English.

2. The schwa is always unstressed. It is pronounced in unstressed syllables and in a multi-syllable word there can be more than one schwa as in “conclusion, announcement, effortless”.

3. It is a very neutral sound; when pronouncing the schwa, remember that your speech organs should be relaxed and neutral

4. The schwa is used to make the speech more fluent because many unstressed syllables and even unimportant words are pronounced with the schwa.

5. It is used in contracting unimportant words for the meaning of the sentence or phrases.

   5 main classes of words that have the neutral vowel shwa [ə]:

   1. Endings of names: Linda, Michael, Olga, Richard, Spencer.

   2. Auxiliary verbs in unstressed position will often have the schwa: have, has, had, were, was, are, am.

   3. Articles, prepositions and particles in unstressed position will often have the schwa: a, the, to, of, as, for, from.

   4. UK counties ending in “shire”: as in Oxfordshire, Berkshire

   5. Names of places ending in “ford” as in Stamford, Stratford.

Below are the most common mistakes people make when they do not know how and when using the schwa:

1. They pronounce the words the way they are spelt. Many Latin words ending with “tion”,”sion” as in “emotion, confusion” are pronounced with the schwa at the end, but people whose native language is based on Latin, like Spanish for example, do not use the schwa and pronounce words the way they are spelt. English spelling and pronunciation are not the same. English pronounce unstressed ending “tion” , “sion” with the schwa. Prefix “con”, “ob” as in “conclusion”, “oblivious” are also pronounced with the schwa. But many wrongly pronounce [ɒ] as in “box”, instead.

2. They make the schwa too long. Remember that the schwa is so short, it is almost not there.
   When you make the schwa too long it is not good English and even the stress in a word can change to the wrong one.

3. Sometimes they pronounce [i:] as in “please” in the article “the”, they say thi: table. It is important to use the schwa. The only time you can pronounce “the” with a short sound [ɪ] as in “big” is when the next word starts with the vowel, for example, “thɪ illness.”

4. They pronounce the article “a” as diphthong [eɪ] as in “pay”. The article “a” is always unstressed and should be pronounced with the schwa.

5. They pronounce prepositions “of” and “from” with the sound [ɒ] as in “box”, these prepositions should be pronounced with the schwa.

6. Quite often, they pronounce “r” which is in spelling in words with the schwa as in “doctor, sponsor, wondered”.

   We teach the schwa in all our books and apps. Practice lessons 6 with the following apps:
   Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, Business English Speech; practice the schwa in lessons 5 and 6 with the app Fluent English Speech.

   Olga Smith

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48. How do I get rid of my native accent and get an American accent?

By Olga Smith

In order to get rid of your accent you need to:
1. Learn and practice how to pronounce sounds of General American pronunciation
2. Do articulation exercises to make your consonants clear and crisp.
This process has several stages:

The first stage is to make sure that you put your lips, tongue and jaw in the right position for the learned sound. If you fail to do so, the sound will not be precise and may be different altogether. Follow the instructions on the speech organ position given at the beginning of each lesson. Pronounce the sound several times, looking in the mirror to make sure you do it correctly.

When you have just started working on a sound your speech organs are not trained; therefore, they might not go automatically for correct placement. When you use the mirror, you can see yourself and adjust lips and jaw positions. When it comes to the tongue position, you need to think about its position and adjust it. When you feel that your sound is correct, start pronouncing the words, sentences and verses in the lesson.

The second stage is aimed at helping you learn a sound by repeating and imitating after the teacher. This exercise will help you to make the sound as correctly as possible and train your speech organs for the particular sound. The more you repeat, the better your pronunciation becomes.

The third stage gives you an opportunity to practice the sound on your own American accent app. You will be hearing yourself and mastering the sound. This stage is essential before recording yourself. We recommend that you practice each sound for about 20-40 minutes a day, with little breaks in between.

The fourth stage involves recording yourself and listening to the recording. It helps you to see whether you have progressed in mastering the pronunciation and to identify where you still make mistakes.

The fifth stage focuses on eliminating mistakes. Correctly repeating the words where you made a mistake will help you avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.

The sixth stage has the purpose of helping you incorporate the learned sound in your everyday speech. It’s about paying attention when you speak. We say: think before you speak and slow down for the period of mastering your speech.

If you speak fast, you are likely to speak in your autopilot mode, with your accent. After the lessons, you will be able to correct yourself. This stage is also trying to find the learned sound in the newspapers, on the radio, on TV and when people are speaking English.

The next step in eliminating your accent is to develop fluency, by speaking in phrases rather than in separate words, while knowing how to correctly link words together. You can practice this with the app Fluent American Speech.
Finally, learn the patterns of American/English intonation and vocal techniques so that your speech is more close to native speakers.

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41. How can improve my speaking skills in 3 months?

By Olga Smith

3 months is a perfect time to achieve this goal. Here is how you do it efficiently:

1. Speak every day for 10–30 minutes preferably to native speakers of English, or non-native speakers with good English. This will help you to overcome the barrier to speak. Don’t think about the grammar when speaking, think of the free flow of your speech.

2. Listen to an audiobook several times. When you listen to the book for the first time, you just get the main ideas; the second time write down words you don’t know; the third time and repeat a small section at a time after the audiobook. This way you will also learn new vocabulary. I like the books in the series Get Rid of your Accent as they help to learn new words and expressions quickly and with the correct pronunciation.

3. Write a few sentences about yourself, choose topics that you talk most about: your name, education, work, study, hobbies and interest. Write down a list of your professional vocabulary and practice it out loud. Then record yourself, listen to your recording and make a note of your mistakes. Correct them and then Record yourself again. Do these recording exercises for each topic.

4. After you have mastered the pronunciation of your most commonly used vocabulary, think about sentence stress and use of pauses in the correct places with the apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. The content of these apps are in the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level

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