2. ENGLISH PHONETICS: THE SCHWA

 Our next move is going to take us, dear readers to English Phonetics!

One of the main taught accents in the English language is RP or Received Pronunciation English. This accent is known as the "perfect English" or Queen and royalty language. Around 3% of the population in the world speaks it due to the fact that is one of the most difficult accents to master especially if your L1 has some kind of pre-established sounds when speaking English. RP has the purest sounds of the English language and is the main original British accent recognisable worldwide.

Focusing a bit on phonetics here, RP has 12 vowel sounds. But wait! What's a vowel? 

Well... According to Cambridge Dictionary, a vowel is a speech sound that you make with your lips and teeth open. OK we all know the basic 5 vocals: a,e,i,o and u but here in RP we have as I said 12 vowel sounds, meaning that a sound can be represented for more than 1 vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Let's see how this works!

This are the 12 vowels. For instance, the symbol (ə) is represented as a soft non-stressed sound very common in many English words. Let's see 2 examples:

The words "teacher" and "about" are very different written but, when it comes to pronunciation, both contain this same sound called the Schwa (ə) . 

/ˈtiːtʃə^r/  teacher         about   /əˈbaʊt/

 As we can observe, the Schwa is written in these words as the letter "e" and "a" but sounds exactly the same. This Schwa sound is contained in thousands of words and the easier way to recognise it is when the speaker is talking in a normal speech speed linking prepositions, verbs, adverbs and so on.

Well, to conclude, this new sound Schwa is one of the most important in the English language as well as other languages in the world, even though is soft and almost silent in the speech.

Hope you like it! Let us know in the comments below what are your thoughts about the Schwa. See you next time little learner!