Page 31 - Modul - PRONUNCIATION - Berbasis Media-PERCOBAAN FLIPBOOK HTML- VERSI 2 16 September

Schwa is the most common sound in the English language. It occurs only in

unstressed syllables and getting it correct helps spoken English to sound more
natural and fluent.

Schwa (spelled shwa) can be said as unstressed central vowel or mid central vowel

sound rounded or unrounded. An example in English is the vowel sound of the ‘a’ in

the word about. Any vowel letter can be pronounced as schwa and the
pronunciation of a vowel letter can change depending on whether the syllable in

which it occurs is stressed or not.

The phonemic symbol for schwa is:

Depending on the dialect, schwa may be written using any of the following letters:
• ‘a’ as in about [ə'baʊt]

• ‘e’ as in taken ['t eɪkən]
h
h
• ‘I’ as in pencil ['p ensəl]
• ‘o’ as in memory ['memərɪ]
• ‘u’ as in supply [sə'plaɪ]

• ‘y’ as in sibyl ['sɪbəl]
• Various combination of letters ‘ai’ in the word mountain ['maʊntən]

• Unwritten, as in rhythm ['rɪðəm]

Activity 2: Practice the schwa sound
Tasks 1
Look at the words below and decide where in the word the schwa sound
occurs. Underline and/or write the schwa symbol over the correct part of the word. The first

one has been done for you.
Hint: One word has two examples of schwa. All the others have only one.

d o c t o r ['d ɑ: k t ə r] b a n a n a

t o mo r r o w d i f f i c u l t
s u mme r l e v e l

p r o t e c t s u r v i v e

p u p i l t h e a t r e

me a s u r e w i z a r d

30 | MODUL PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE