Speak Method Pro

Create the schwa sound by holding your mouth in a neutral position and just saying u as in up. This sound is made in the middle of the mouth. It is the upside-down e in the IPA, not the upside-down v (made in the back of the mouth). Just concentrate on creating a simple, bright sound.

Though the sound is simple, its spellings are not! Any vowel can sound like the schwa sound on an unstressed syllable, and many common words like “come,” “money,” “was” and “what” have a schwa sound as the main vowel. We have to memorize these common words. See a list here. And otherwise, we can expect that unstressed vowels are very often schwa sounds. Practice these words with the video here.

cunning	customary
embassy	honor
snub	doctor
worry	money
generous	wonderful
roughly	current
atmosphere	hug
season	champion
region	equal
summary	study
once	expert
structure	just
fun	bug
custom	famous
jealous	courtesy

Words with stress on the 2nd syllable: accord, appeal, alliance, announce, autonomous, charisma, confront, conspiracy, convention, success, connect, concern, assistant, assume, attend, opinion, alert, offend, conditioning, become, potential, results, occur, umbrella, ability, adapt, stir up

Words with stress on the 3rd syllable: misconstrue, unemployed.

Stress on 1st syllable when Noun: conduct, upset.

Stress on 2nd syllable when Verb: conduct, conflict, consist, upset, address.

Phrases with (of): a bit of, a couple of, north of, south of, in the middle of, the effect of, it’s a matter of opinion, as a matter of fact.

Practice New Words with more videos and lessons or see all English Practice options.

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