English Schwa Words-Quiz Competition

What do I mean by the title  English schwa words – quiz?

You can win a free 8 page guide with pronunciation instructions specific to your language background.

Following on from my last article, I wanted to bring you some more practise at listening for the stressed and de stressed vowels in words. This time though, I’m focusing on you hearing the English schwa words where the ‘a’ letter says the schwa sound /ə/.

Just as the de stressed syllables or weak form in longer words uses the schwa vowel to signify it’s the weak form, this also happens in words in sentences.

So English schwa words are those that are usually short and don’t convey the main meaning in a sentence. Because they don’t convey the main meaning, their vowel is often de- stressed. They become the weak form words in the sentence- the English schwa words.

For example  : ‘I want to go to the shop’.

The words that convey the main meaning in the sentence are:-  I,  want, go, shop.  If I just said those 4 words you would get my main meaning.

The weak form words in the sentence are:- to, to, the- The vowels in these words are changed and said as the weak form -as a schwa sound /ə/.

So the sentence is said : I want tə go tə thə shop.

English Schwa Words- Quiz Competition

Win a free 8 page guide with pronunciation instructions specific to your language background.

Instructions:-

Listen to the audio recording below.

1)  You will only be listening for when the ‘a’ letter says /ae/, and the ‘a’ letter in a word  says the schwa sound /ə/.

2) You need to count how many times the ‘a’ letter says /ae/, and how many times the ‘a’ letter says /ə/.

3) Listen as many times as you like and when you are sure, write your answer in the comments section at the bottom of this article like this:- ‘a’ says /ae/ ( enter number ) times.    ‘a’ says the schwa sound (enter number ) times.

4) The first 4 people who are closest to the right answer will win a free guide with pronunciation instructions specific to their language background.

The free guide includes:

• the specific errors you need to work on for your language background, and what order to work on them
• extra practise tips and techniques to make your practise quicker and more efficient

English Schwa Words- Quiz Competition Audio 

Looking forward to your answers. Best wishes, Esther