English spelling and pronunciation are not the same. Many Latin words ending with “t ion”,”s ion” as in “emotion, confusion” are pronounced with the schwa at the end, but people whose native language is based on Latin, like Spanish for example, do not use the schwa and pronounce words the way they are spelt. They pronounce the words the way they are spelt. Names of places ending in “ford” as in Stamf ord, Stratf ord.īelow are the most common mistakes people make when they do not know how and when using the schwa: UK counties ending in “shire”: as in Oxfordsh ire, Berksh ireĥ. Articles, prepositions and particles in unstressed position will often have the schwa: a, th e, t o, of, as, f or, fr om.Ĥ. Auxiliary verbs in unstressed position will often have the schwa: h ave, h as, h ad, w ere, w as, are, am.ģ. Endings of names: Lind a, Mich ael, Olg a, Rich ard, Spenc er.Ģ. It is used in contracting unimportant words for the meaning of the sentence or phrases.ĥ main classes of words that have the neutral vowel shwa :ġ.

The schwa is used to make the speech more fluent because many unstressed syllables and even unimportant words are pronounced with the schwa. It is a very neutral sound when pronouncing the schwa, remember that your speech organs should be relaxed and neutral

It is pronounced in unstressed syllables and in a multi-syllable word there can be more than one schwa as in “c onclus ion, announcem ent, eff ortl ess”. 5 most important characteristics of the schwa are:

What is a schwa