What is the most common sound in English? (A1-A2)
The answer is...
... /ә/. We call this sound the schwa and using it correctly will help to make your pronunciation clearer and more natural.
The schwa makes a short, soft sound and can be found in the following examples:
| /ә/ |
| about |
| ago |
| a car, a dog, a man, etc. |
In German, you use the schwa in the word Liebe, and in the word ce in French.
In English we also have the sound /ei/. This sounds like the alphabet letter A. It's used in the following examples:
| /eɪ/ |
| late |
| say |
| break |
How do I know if a word is pronounced /ә/ or /eɪ/ ?
A good dictionary will tell you the different sounds in a word. Below are examples from the Cambridge Learner's Dictionary where you can see the sounds underlined in orange and green.
The Cambridge Learner's Dictionary is a great, free resource. On the website, when you click on the speakers under a word, you can also listen to the standard British and American English pronunciations of that word.
Interested in learning more?
The schwa isn't stressed, so when a word has more than one syllable, the stress is always on a different syllable. In the examples below, you can see that the stress is on the second syllable:
about - /əˈbaʊt/
ago - /əˈɡəʊ/
When we speak, we say the stressed part of the word a little louder. We call this word stress and correct word stress makes it much easier for people to understand us.