Schwa Flashcards
How common is the Schwa?
Schwa is the most common vowel in English.
How do you produce the Schwa sound?
Short: 1) Relax the tongue and lips completely with the jaw only slightly open; 2) Emit sound from the throat.
Long: By relaxing the tongue completely, not moving it at all as the voice comes out. Since the tongue is completely relaxed, it should be touching the bottom teeth on the sides and in front.
How can you guess when a vowel is a Schwa?
1) Schwa is the most common vowel, so it appears quite often
2) Schwa does not appear in a stressed sylable
3) In one-syllable words, schwa appears only when they are unstressed.
4) Schwa also appears when the word is used as a certain part of speech (e.g.: separate in its verb form uses Long A, but as an adjective it uses Schwa).
Always Schwa words
action silent delicious problem information woman ambitions along efficient prominent seven about
Schwa in casual speech or unstressed words
destroy july damage strategy foreign was wallet the secret habit become a
