U.S. English Pronunciation Lesson 15: the vowels /æ/ and /ə/

U.S. English Pronunciation
Lesson 15: the vowels /æ/ and /ə/

The vowel sound /æ/ is commonly represented in English as the letter 'a', but like all vowels in English, there are quite a few spelling variations. The sound /ə/ is the vowel sound in many unstressed syllables in English.

Keep in mind as you learn English pronunciation that English spelling is rather unpredictable with a multitude of exceptions and variations. The rules sometimes seem to lack a predictable pattern. Fortunately there are only a limited number of 'phonemes', or sounds. That's why these pronunciation lessons focus on the phonemes and try to give only non-exceptional spelling examples. This should make it easier for you to master the individual sounds as you progress and start to encounter variations and exceptions. Individual phonemes are represented by their International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol between forward slashes: / /. To further simplify things, we will only cover vowel pronunciation in standard U.S. English. We will not cover the multitude of variations that exist in the different U.S. regions or in different countries.



/æ/

The vowel sound /æ/ is an open/open-mid front vowel. It is pronounced in the middle to lower front part of the mouth. Play the sound recording* below to get a better idea of its pronunciation.

Practice repeating this sound a few times. Then, practice the following words containing the /æ/ sound:

bat
cat
at
cap
map
mat
bag
tag
back
rack



/ə/

The vowel sound /ə/ appears in many unstressed syllables in English no matter the spelling. Syllable stress is a more advanced topic that we will not cover in this lesson, but you should at least practice pronouncing it here. When you move on to more advanced topics you will be familiar with the sound. The /ə/ sound is a mid central vowel. Play the sound recording* below to get a better idea of its pronunciation.

Practice repeating this sound a few times. Then, practice the following words containing the /ə/ sound:

[place stress on the underlined syllable]
possible
condense
about
account
written
upon


The goal of this course is to help you learn English pronunciation in simple, easy-to-understand terms, while at the same time giving you enough familiarity with technical linguistic concepts to move on to other, more advanced topics. Try reviewing the previous pronunciation lessons (see links to the right).

Next lesson: The vowels /u/ and /ʊ/ -->>



This work by ESLport.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

*ESLPort.com is not the original author of the vowel sound recordings used herein. They are used with permission and licensed under the Creative Commons attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. They were obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel#Audio_samples. The original author does not endorse ESLPort.com or its use of this recording.