American English sound
Schwa /ə/: the most common sound in American English
Schwa /ə/ is the short, relaxed “uh” in about, banana and the. It is the most common vowel sound in American English, and it only ever appears in unstressed syllables.
Any vowel letter can be pronounced as schwa: the a in about, the e in taken, the o in today, the u in support. Americans shrink unstressed vowels to schwa, and that contrast between strong and weak syllables is what gives American English its rhythm.
/ə/
schwa
How to make the sound
- 1Relax your whole mouth: jaw slightly open, lips neutral, neither smiling nor rounded.
- 2Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, not high, low, front or back.
- 3Make it short and quiet: a quick “uh”, with no effort.
- 4Put the stress on the syllable next to it, never on the schwa itself.
- Tongue
- mid-central
- Lips
- neutral
- Voice
- voiced
Hear it in words
Tap a word to hear it.
At the start
In the middle
At the end
How it's spelled
- a: about, sofa, banana
- e: taken, the, problem
- i: pencil, family
- o: today, lemon, second
- u: support, focus
Common mistakes
Pronouncing every vowel as it's spelled
Saying ba-NA-NA with three full vowels sounds foreign and breaks the rhythm. Only the stressed syllable gets a full vowel: buh-NA-nuh.
Full vowels in small words
In normal speech, to, for, of, a, the and and are usually reduced: “a cup of tea” sounds like “uh cup uh tea”.
Stressing the schwa syllable
A schwa is never stressed. If you put weight on it, the word's stress moves and listeners may not recognize it.
Try it
“A banana and a lemon for America's president.”
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Is schwa the same as the vowel in “cup”?
They're close in quality. Dictionaries write /ʌ/ in stressed syllables (cup, love) and /ə/ in unstressed ones (about, sofa); the stressed one is a little longer and stronger.
What does /ɚ/ mean?
/ɚ/ is a schwa with R-coloring, the unstressed vowel at the end of butter, teacher and doctor. In American English the R in these words is pronounced.