Pronunciation 4: schwa stress and magic E

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 4

Schwa & Magic E

 Previously on pronunciation....

Pet /e/ and Batman /æ/

Luck /ʌ/

th-sounds

Today: 

stress & schwa

magic E

STRESS

 (and not the kind we experience at school 

or life in general)

Emphasis on part of the word

Stress can change the meaning

Even similar words can have different stress patterns

Schwa

The sound a vowel can make when the syllable isn’t stressed.

Sounds like UHH

Check out the unstressed syllables in ‘photographer’:

Pho - TO - gra - pher 

Schwa in Dutch

Makkelijk

Gelukkig 

Lisanne

Janneke

Coming up: spot the schwa!

Decimal

1. E
2. I
3. A

Medium

1. E
2. I
3. U

Harmony

1. A
2. O
3. Y

Postman

1. O
2. A

Present

1. E1
2. E2

Survive

1. U
2. I
3. E

Brother

1. O
2. E

Wizard

1. I
2. A

Alone

1. A
2. O
3. E

MAGIC E

MAGIC E

“MAGIC E” sounds a bit weird.
What do you think it is?

0

Now that you’ve survived watching that... what’s magic E?

You’ve heard and seen some words that change with magic E. Try to come up with a word pair yourself!

Today we’ve learned...