What is the schwa sound? (video, 3.18 minutes)
Summary
(Review this summary if you can’t answer one of the questions in the quiz below)
Knowledge check
Why is knowing about the schwa so important?
If I can teach my students one thing to help them with their speaking and listening, I will always teach them about the schwa before anything else. It’s the most important topic related to pronunciation, and increasing your knowledge of the schwa will help you improve both your listening and your speaking more than anything else I could teach you. The schwa is very important in the stress and rhythm (the ‘music’) of spoken English and is an important part of connected speech. If you want to speak natural-sounding English and to understand native speakers, you need to understand the schwa sound.
The schwa and syllable stress in words (video, 6.04 minutes)
The schwa and sentence stress (video, 6.42 minutes)
Knowledge check
- Read the question and listen to the audio if there is one.
- After answering the question, click the right arrow at the bottom to move to the next question.
- You can also click on any circle at the bottom to go forward or backwards to a particular slide.
- The final slide gives you a summary of your results.
- You can maximize the activity by clicking on the two arrows at the bottom right.