The schwa, or the most common sound in English, is one that can really catch you off-guard. One minute, it’s essential, and the next, well, it’s not. What’s happening here?
My explanation is simply this; Americans hate rules. We’re more interested in guidelines. Unfortunately for language learners, this makes every part of pronunciation harder to learn which slows everything down. Click the video below to see what I mean, which common words our allergy to structure and consistency affects, and how they sound. Then scroll down to see a quick guide and some additional links to help you out.
Each word in English has syllables, and each syllable has a stress. In case you missed it, I covered how to stress different syllables here. It all feels very straightforward, but we didn’t get into one very distinct problem in English.
The deleted schwa
As you watch the video, you’ll hear these words pronounced two different ways; once with a distinct third syllable and once with a missing syllable. Remember, both are correct. Pronunciation changes based on where a person grew up, how their parents spoke, their age, and a million other factors.
Here’s the full list for your review. Each word is linked to some examples from different movies so that you can hear the schwa and some examples with that sound missing. Dictionary.com does a great job of revealing this deleted syllable.
Here’s an example
The word “real” can be pronounced two ways:
RE-al, with a big emphasis on that schwa at the beginning. Or, it can be a simple real, all one syllable. Both are correct; the meaning or emotion doesn’t change. Only the first sound changes.
In the video, I do a quick compare and contrast of several more words. Click on each one to hear how they’re pronounced in different movies by both native and non-native speakers.
The list
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