American English Sounds - UH [ə] Vowel - How to make the SCHWA Vowel

In this American English pronunciation

video, we’re going to learn how to

pronounce the schwa vowel sound.

This vowel is always unstressed. The

mouth position is a lot like the UH as in

BUTTER vowel, but that vowel can be

and usually is stressed. But just like that

vowel, everything in your lips, jaw, and

neck should be relaxed for this sound.

Just slightly drop your jaw to make this

sound. The trick is to keep everything

else relaxed.

Let’s look at the vowel up close and in

slow motion.

It’s possible to make this sound on its

own with just the slightest jaw drop. But

in actual words, you will likely see a bit

more jaw drop, like here, on the word

‘sofa’. Lips relaxed, cheeks relaxed,

tongue forward and relaxed.

As I said, this vowel can only be in an

unstressed syllable. All other vowel and

diphthong sounds can either be stressed

or unstressed. So the schwa will always

be really fast and low in pitch. Uh, uh.

Sofa, uh. Ability, uh.

The schwa goes with the syllabic

consonants L, M, N, and R. That means

when you have a syllable with a schwa

followed by one of these consonants, you

don’t need to make the schwa. It gets

absorbed by the next sound. For

example, the word ‘father’: th-rr, th-rr.

Just go from the TH sound right into the

R sound without trying to make a

separate schwa. Father, -ther.

The schwa: always unstressed. Uh, sofa,

uh, uh, ability, uh.

Example words. Repeat with me:

Allow, extra, data, again, visa, about.

I hope this video helps you understand

this sound. That’s it, and thanks so much

for using Rachel’s English.