The important of Schwa Sound in learning English pronunciation and listening

[The apprentice]

Dear teachers and members:


The following is my opinion in regard to the importance of Schwa Sound (ə) in learning English pronunciation and listening.

1°) In English, a syllable is a segment of speech consisting of a consonant and a vowel, a consonant and a diphthong, a consonant and a triphthong, a syllabic consonant or only a vowel, which mades sound in a word, being the vowel the more important and the one who receives the stress changes.

2°) I found that English has only four levels of stress pattern: Primary stress syllable, secondary stress syllable, unstressed syllable and vowel reduction, being the more frequent the unstressed syllable and a vowel reduction levels, also called Schwa Sound.

3°) We can notice that there is more than a Schwa Sound in many multisyllable words (consonant /ˈkɒn

sə

nənt/, vulnerable /ˈvʌl

nər

ə

bəl/), but I have also noticed that there is no words with more than three Schwa Sounds.

4°) Almost every multi-syllable word in English has unstressed syllable, and most of the function words in sentences have vowel reduction. It is said that more than 65 percent of words in a text are Schwa Sounds - including unstressed syllables as well as vowel reductions -. It is also said that the 100 more common function words (the, a, of, to, and, that, for, can, etc.) when are not alone or at the end of a sentence in English have vowel reduction, which means it becomes into Schwa Sound, so in other word, English is a Schwa Sound Language.

5°) Finally, I encourage those who are learning English and specially those who are learning it as a second language to know the important of the Schwa Sound in learning English pronunciation and listening.

Please, I would like your comments about my opinion and I would appreciate to be clarified in any misunderstanding that I had written.


Very sincerely and my regards to all of you,



The Apprentice.

 

[SoothingDave]

"Importance" is the noun form.

 

[The apprentice]

Thank you SoothingDave:

You quite right; this is the correct form. (importance)


Regards,


The Apprentice.

 

[5jj]

1°) In English, a syllable is a segment of speech consisting of a consonant and a vowel, a consonant and a diphthong, a consonant and a triphthong, a syllabic consonant or only a vowel, which mades sound in a word, being the vowel the more important and the one who receives the stress changes.

Your definition of syllable is not very clear. I am not sure exactly what you mean by the part I have underlined.

 

[The apprentice]

Thank you 5jj for your reply and correction:


In English, a syllable is a segment of speech consisting of a consonant and a vowel, a consonant and a diphthong, a consonant and a triphthong, a syllabic consonant or only a vowel, which mades sound in a word, being the vowel the more important and the one who receives the stress changes.

I mean that in a syllable in which a consonant and a vowel (a diphthong or triphthong) are involved, the vowel is the more important phoneme. It is the one which makes the main sound in a word and the one which receives the stress pattern whether it be a primary stress, a secondary stress, no stress (Schwa Sound) or a vowel reduction (Schwa Sound); for example:

ECONOMY: /ɪˈkɒn

ə

mi/; in this word the vowels E, O and the semi vowel Y are the ones which make the main sounds and the ones which receive the stress pattern; the vowel E is a short i sound /ɪ/; the first vowel O is a short o sound /ɒ/; the second vowel O is an unstressed vowel sound or Schwa Sound /ə

/, and finally the semi vowel Y is a long i sound /i/.

Though a vowel can convey a meaning on its own (as A does), something that a consonant cannot do, I recognize that both have and convey sounds (phonemes), but being the vowel the more important sound or phoneme in a syllable.

In regard to syllabic consonants I will post a thread about it later on bacause I consider it to be another issue.

Thanks again 5jj,

Yours truly.


The Apprentice