What is a correct way to pronounce æ and Schwa sounds?

Question

This are the most diffucult sounds to me. Sometimes Schwa sounds to me like a short Spanish O and sometimes a short Spanish A.

but = B'O'T in spanish or is it like B'A'T?

æ is also hard to be me to pronounce it. it sounds to me like a A spanish sound and something like a E Spanish Sound.

Rafaelinrio · Accepted Answer

Man you've gotta watch movies, talk to native English speakers and so on to improve your pronunciation. I don't speak Spanish, so I don't know if you have any similar sound in your language.

the U in but is pronounced like it is is cut, must, drug and so on.

Kooyeen · Answer

Hi, and welcome to EnglishForward.
I will move this thread to the section about pronunciation after you reply, OK? Because here we just post about grammar issues.

Anyway, how sounds are produced depends on the dialect you are considering... there are regional variations, you know. It's difficult to explain how to make a certain sound though.

æ is usually somewhere between Spanish A and Spanish E. So you should open your mouth like you are going to say A, but try to say E instead. You should try to say A and E at the same time, and hopefully it'll come out as something in between.

Schwas are more difficult to explain. Take the U in BUT as something like a Spanish A, but less clear... try to pronounce it lazily, like you are drunk or something. Why does it sound like a Spanish O or a Spanish A? Because it's in between. It's neither O nor A, it's kind of "central" in your mouth, and you could say it's like it's between O and A.

Just practice. Look up some material online, there is a lot of interesting stuff about sounds in English. If you are interested in British English, take a look at the BBC website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/****/sounds/

And remember that not everyone speaks the same way. There are a lot of different accents, and some are very different from the "expected" ones or the ones you have learned.

What is a correct way to pronounce æ and Schwa sounds?

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