The SECRET to Natural and Fluent Australian English Pronunciation! 🇦🇺🎙️

hi everyone if you're new here welcome to aie English with Amanda and if you're returning welcome back to aie English with Amanda I'm Amanda and I share videos about Australian English Australian accent tips and tricks slang and just things you might not know about Australia Today I want to talk about one of the most important yet one of the most confusing vowel sounds in Australian English the schwar sound it's especially important if you want to sound more natural when speaking English we're going to look at how to replace any short vowel sound with the schw sound and how to use it interchangeably in Connected speech to have a smoother transition between words in a sentence so let's get [Music] started understanding the schwar sound can be a little bit tricky because any vowel or combination of vowel can sound like awah English being non-phonetic doesn't visually represent this sound in its written form however to those familiar with the phonetic alphabet you'll recognize it as this little upside down e here and for the rest of the video you'll see me referring to this as this sound here the schw sound is a short interchangeable vow sound that can replace any of the short vowels so a e i o u it's a relaxed neutral sound often used unconsciously by native speakers or by those comfortable in their own accent or dialect it's produced when the tongue and jaw are in a neutral or resting position and it's usually in unstressed syllables vowel reduction or the use of the schw sound plays a really significant role in Australian English connected speech in this variety of English unstressed vowels tend to be pronounced as schah particularly in word final and syllable final positions it can also replace some vowel sounds in certain words this reduction of unstressed vowels helps contribute to the really kind of natural Rhythm and flow of Australian English it sounds like a really lazy unstressed uh sound and is extremely common when other dialects of English would use the a sound so I want you to follow along with me completely relax your jaw if you have to open your mouth really wide and then just release it I want your jaw and tongue to be in a natural resting position not open close now you just want to make an uh sound not an a we're not opening our mouth and stressing that vow relax the jaw and mouth uh my mouth opens just slightly uh see how my jaw isn't moving at all uh that's a schw sound all these words have the schw sound when spoken and mastering this sound is crucial it will help to enhance your English pronunciation making you sound more natural relaxed and fluent like a native English speaker let's have a look at them about a about pronunciation breakdown is here about item item item person person person farmer Farmer far banana bana so this has two B na na a really common question I get as a teacher is when should I use a short vow sound and when should I use the schah sound so in English when words or syllables aren't stressed the sound gets reduced and that's when the vowel letter often reduces to awah sound multi- syllable words in English so words with more than one syllable they typically have one primary stress and the other syllables when unstressed turn into the schwas sound now this is English so there are some exceptions to the rule but it's a really good rule to kind of go off um generally speaking as another general rule of thumb every syllable has to have a vow sound and if you can't hear the stressed vow sound then that's probably the sh have a look at this example crocodile three syllables crocodile first vowel sound here c o short o sound o cile this is a diff thong so it's still a vow sound I I crocodile here in the middle well I should say here o i o i here in the middle we don't say crocodile or crocodile because we can't hear this sound when we say the word crocodile that's where the sh sound most likely is and it is here you can see we have the upside down e and the u h crocodile the next Word lesson two syllables Leen the first vow sound in the first syllable is an e short e the same that's in egg e but we don't really say The Vow sound in the second syllable we don't say less Leon we say lesen n so you can see here schw sound schw sound Leen now let's explore how the schw sound substitutes for each vow first we have the short a ahead a head about a about about salad salid salad okay for the short e the first word is elephant three syllables two schwar sounds elant elephant second word seven seeven seen and the third word mother ma the ma the so we have chah Sounds here next we have the short I sound so all of these have similar endings and the schwar is at the end of all of them the first word benefit actually has two sounds because it's three syllables B benefit next one limit liit limit and the third one Prophet proit proit now we have the short o sound the first word connect will sound like connect the next one motor motor I use a t flap so I say motor but motor motor today today today and finally we have the short u so for the first word album album album the next one is a bit tricky because we've got a silent letter at the end n so we just say or AUM Autumn the last one column colum colum now let's have a look how changing a vowel sound into awah sound can help with connected speech if you see these words here all of these we can actually pronounce with the short vowel sound and with the schw sound you or y y y into ENT two T the the so basically we change the short vow into awah sound when the following word starts with a consonant we'll try them in some sentences let's look at this first sentence are you finished with your homework if we pronounce this word by word it sounds very mechanical and very robotic so to make it sound more natural and Native we'll substitute the short vowel sound with awah sound so as an example I've changed you to you and your to you are you finished with your homework are you finished with your homework said quickly are you finished with your homework for this next one same as before I've substituted your with Y yeah so instead of saying what's your name we say what's your name what's your name an easy way to try and practice this as well if you're trying to link them together is just practice this sound first and then connect it to the next word y y your name your name what's your name and then add the last word in after that what's your name this sentence is a little bit longer but I wanted to show you as well the difference when we use contractions so if I was to say this sentence word for word I am really into Netflix shows these days again very robotic very mechanical but I've combined these two into a contraction to say I'm really inter using the schw sound here I'm really into Netflix shows these days again if you want to practice just try these two together first inter inter Netflix into Netflix I'm really into Netflix shows these days and the last example we are going to the beach same as before I've taken this and turned it into a contraction this is actually really easy to say it's just the same pronunciation as where so don't be scared to try and use contractions because they're actually quite easy and it's another way to help you sound more natural and Native so we're going to the beach practice these two together it's much easier Toth Toth to the beach link it with this then where going to the beach we're going to the beach so that's it that's the Aussie schwar sound I really hope you found this video helpful and if you did don't forget to like it and subscribe for more Aussie English content I do have plans to be bringing more Aussie English content just like this and you don't want to miss out so I'll see you next time notice how I said yeah I'll see you next [Music] time

Channel: Aussie English With Amanda

Views: 7,024

Keywords: english pronunciation, learn english, pronunciation tips, easy pronunciation tips, australian english, aussie english, australian slang, aussie slang, oz english, australian accent, aussie accent, aus lingo, australian culture, aussie words, aussie, english learning, aussie english with amanda, english pronunciation practice, english pronunciation lesson, learn english pronunciation, english listening practice, connected speech

Id: unJIheV9Bjw

Length: 11min 46sec (706 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024