So the next vowel we will talk about is the UH-sound. For me, it’s easier to remember what sound I am referring to by writing it as the UH-sound over the IPA symbol.

However, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol for this sound is /ә/. Its sound symbol is an upside down backwards ‘e’. The formal name of that symbol is called the schwa.

In General American English and Canadian English, the [ә] sound is the sound in the word ‘SUPPLY’ or ‘THE’.

In English, schwa is the most common vowel sound. So it is important to recognize, identify and recreate.

SYMBOL

On the IPA vowel chart, it is located on the middle of the chart.

Now, I can’t say I know what the equivalent colour on the Color Vowel® Chart, created by Karen Taylor and Shirley Thompson in 1999, is. I haven’t taken any classes or courses on it but my guess would be that because the schwa [ə] is not a primary stress syllable, it gets grouped into or taught in conjunction with another vowel sound [ʌ]. I’ll delve into it more when we get to that sound but for now, I’m personally connecting it to [ʌ], which IS represented in the Color Vowel Chart as ‘A CUP OF MUSTARD’. Notice the consistent placement in the middle of the chart of each respective chart.

*The Color Vowel® Chart, 5th Edition* © 2019. ColorVowel.com. Used with Creative Commons licensing (CC BY-NC-ND).

SOUND

The schwa sound [ə] is pretty special. The reason is because it is so common in English, it can be represented by many different vowels in spelling, and the schwa sound occurs in two different circumstances:

in an unstressed syllable of a multi-syllable word
as a reduced vowel sound in a function word

With the schwa sound, you want to remember there is very little effort involved:

First, you’ll have to part your lips a little. There’s almost no jaw drop. So relax your lips so there’s a slight opening. The tongue stays very relaxed, low in the mouth, with the tip forward, lightly touching the back of the bottom front teeth.Then, make a sound while keeping your mouth relaxed.

The resulting sound will be low in pitch and short.

1. Schwa in an unstressed syllable

In words with more than one syllable, not every syllable is given equal emphasis when spoken. Three levels of syllable stress are possible:

stressed /⬤/
secondarily stressed /●/
unstressed /•/

Every multi-syllable word has a single stressed syllable. The single stressed syllable of the word has the most emphasis. The remainder of the syllables may have a secondary stress or may be unstressed.

The word emphasize has all the levels of stress. The first syllable is stressed, the second syllable is an unstressed syllable pronounced as schwa, and the third syllable has a secondary stress.

em•pha•size

/⬤ • ●/

The schwa sound is typically present as an unstressed syllable. In the word emphasize, this refers to the vowel in the pha syllable.

2. Schwa in function words

Proper use of schwa helps speakers adopt and maintain typical English sentence stress patterns. Certain grammatical words called function words can have two different pronunciations or forms in spoken English: a citation form and a reduced form.

The citation form of a word is the pronunciation shown first in a dictionary transcription. It is the pronunciation used when the word is spoken alone or out of context. Citation form pronunciation is actually less common than the reduced pronunciation of function words.

If a dictionary transcribes reduced forms of words, it is usually noted as a secondary transcription. If this transcription shows the vowel sound of function words reduced to schwa, the vowel sound of the word is said quicker and with a more neutral vowel sound than the citation pronunciation.

Function words are typically only reduced when the word is used within a sentence, and not if the word is being spoken in isolation.

The reduced pronunciations helps function words fall into the background of speech, while content words gain emphasis.

FUNCTION WORD	CITATION FORM	REDUCED FORM
TO	/tu/	/tə/
CAN	/kæn/	/kən/
DO	/du/	/də/
YOU	/yu/	/yə/
THE	/ði/	/ðə/

In connected speech, default to the reduced form for function word pronunciation. It is more natural and consistent with native English speech.

The only time I would use the citation form is when I want to emphasize the function word for clarification or emphasis.

For my birthday, I want an ice cream cake AND a pizza party!

By emphasizing the AND, we are using the citation form instead of the reduced form which would use the schwa vowel. This particularly makes a listener pay attention to the function word AND because you’ve used a citation form unexpectedly. Therefore, in this sentence, the AND is super important and salient.

FEATURES

The [ә] sound features are as follows.

Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

VISUAL REPRESENTATION

In English, the schwa sound is reflected in spelling in many different ways. It is a reduced vowel in many unstressed syllable. Depending on the specific English dialect, it may be written using any of the following letters:

a - about, again, vitamin, banana, balloon
e - taken, petition, celebrate, chicken, enemy
i - pencil, president, experiment, possible, duplicate
o - memory, occur, condition, parrot
u - supply, campus, stadium
y - sibyl, syringe, analysis
unwritten - rhythm - although not written, there is a vowel preceding the M-sound

The reason why I’m especially showing you the different spelling combinations that can create this sound is that there will ALWAYS be exceptions, weird spellings, or other things that impact how reliable the written representation will be. You need to be able to identify the sound,

Specifically with the schwa, you will need to notice it because rhyming typically involves the primary stressed syllable. The schwa will not be located in the primary stress syllable. Instead, pay attention to the unstressed syllables in multi-syllabic words to see if you can hear the schwa.

I’m breaking down every single sound down for you so that you can learn how to produce each sound in English accurately. Sometimes, we’ll have easier sounds and sometimes we’ll have harder sounds.

If you’ve grasped this sound, then great! But if you’ve got a tip that might work for others, or you took a while to produce this sound correct but something clicked for you, let me know down below in the comments. My goal is to have a community know what to do when they’re stuck!

The UH-Sound