Schwa

Schwa is the name for the most common sound in English. It is a weak, unstressed sound and it occurs in many words. It is often the sound in grammar words such as articles and prepositions.

Schwa is represented by this phonemic symbol:

Let's watch a demonstration video about schwa:

Where isfound?

1.can usually be found in function words which are unstressed in the sentence:

a, am, an, and, are, as, at, but, can, do, for, had, has, have, her, him, his, if, in, is, it, its, of, on, or, than, that, the, their, them, to was, will, with, you, your.

2.  can be found in prefixes and suffixes as well:

in-, suc-, to-, ad-, be-, un-, -ible, -able, -ish, -ment, etcetera.

3. can be found in content words as well:

able, according, account, action, affair, afraid, ago, agree, allow, alone, along, amount, animal, arrive,article, attempt, away, battle, beautiful, became, become, began, begin, believe, belong, broken, business,captain, certain, certainly, character, children, college, command, common, company, complete, condition,consider, contain, continue, control, decide, declare, degree, demand, desire, destroy, difference, different,direct, direction, discover, distance, double, enemy, England, enough, even, experience, family, famous,forest, garden, general, gentlemen, given, golden, happen, heaven, human, husband, hundred, idea,important, Indian, industry, interest, island, kitchen, listen, little, market, material, method, million, minute,moment, mountain, movement, nation, national, natural, necessary, notice, office, officer, often, open,opinion, people, period, pleasant, position, possible, practice, prepare, probably, problem, promise, public,purpose, question, reason, receive, regard, remain, remember, reply, report, require, result, return, season,second, service, settle, seven, several, single, special, station, success sudden, suddenly, supply, suppose,system, table, taken, thousand, today, together, tomorrow, travel, trouble, uncle, various, village, visit,woman, women.