What is the Schwa Sound? How Does it Impact My Accent?
The “schwa” sound, written phonetically by speech-language pathologists and linguists as /ə/, is one of the two most frequently used vowel sounds in American English. Depending on your first language and your familiarity with the English language, the use of the “schwa” sound may be difficult to pronounce. Therefore, it is important to understand how your language background may influence your English pronunciation. Start by checking out the sounds that are used in your language(s) first. Additionally, you can listen to what the schwa sounds like and how to produce the sound with our Sounds American video.
If you are trying to improve your American English pronunciation, this sound is very important because roughly one in five English words has the schwa! In addition, keep reading about this vital sound and how it can impact your American English accent.
How do I produce the schwa sound?
When producing the schwa sound, you should be relaxing your tongue and lips. First, open your mouth slightly, and leave your lips in a relaxed, neutral position. Second, make sure your tongue should be in the middle of your mouth and relaxed. Finally, RELAX! Your articulators (tongue, lips, etc.) should not be tense. For additional help, check out this visual:
Let’s practice!
Refer to the words below to use as practice to produce the schwa sound. You can read them aloud to yourself, or follow along with our Sounds American video.
- ability
- above
- abrupt
- absence
- absent
- abyss
- academic
- accident
- accurate
- accusal
- achieve
- achieve
- across
- action
- actual
- adapt
- addition
- address
- adequate
- adjust
- administration
- adopt
- adult
- advance
- affect
- afraid
- Africa
- again
- against
- agency
How do I know when to produce a schwa sound?
Because the schwa sound can be used in multiple different spellings, it is difficult to know when you should use it. The schwa sound is most commonly written as “a”, like in the word “above”. The next most common spellings are “o” as in “today”, and “e”, as in the second “e” in “even”. It is not as common to see the schwa sound pronounced in words containing “io”, as in the word “nation”. Additionally, schwa can rarely be produced in words containing “i”, as in “pencil”, or in words containing “u”, as in the word “product”.
After learning that schwa may be produced when you see the vowels “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “io”, and “u”, you may feel a little overwhelmed. After all, “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, and “u”, are all of the vowels in English (excluding diphthongs). However, if you can learn the patterns and become familiar with words that use the schwa sound, your American English pronunciation will greatly improve! 
Which common words used in Portland, OR use the schwa sound?
#1: Oregon
The first and most obvious example of the use of /ə/ is the word Oregon! As you may have read in our previous post, Strangely Pronounced Words in Portland, OR, this word is pronounced “OR-uh-gun”, not “or-uh-GONE”. We Oregonians like to maximize our schwa usage. Why use one schwa when you could use two?!
#2: Willamette
Portlanders also maximize our /ə/ use with the pronunciation of the word “will-AM-it”, a major river in the area. Willamette is not usually pronounced “will-am-et”, so make sure you’ve practiced your schwa sound before attempting this one.
#3: Umbrella
This word is commonly used when describing something that true Portlanders never use: umbrellas! We’re so used to the rain here that using an umbrella would be admitting weakness. We’ll just put up our hoods instead. To start and finish this word, make sure you’ve practiced your schwa sound first! It’s pronounced “um-BREH-luh”.
#4: Donut
With 11 distinctive donut shops in Portland, knowing how to pronounce the word “donut” is an essential Portland, OR term. This word is pronounced “DOH-nut”, not “doh-NOT”. We are donut connoisseurs here, and we doh-NOT pronounce this word incorrectly here!
With the practice and information provided in this post, we hope that you will be able to improve your American English accent! Watch the full Sounds American video to learn more, and check out our other videos pertaining to American English pronunciation.
If you missed us last time, check out our last post, Strangely Pronounced Words in Portland, OR!
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Check out our YouTube Channel! If you’re a Portland, OR local, check out our Meetup Group, classes at Portland Community College, and Intel Employee classes!
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