Schwa sound words
Schwa is the neutral, unstressed vowel in the first sound of about and the last of sofa. It appears in unstressed syllables regardless of which vowel letter is written, which is why banana uses the same sound for two different letters. Reducing these syllables to schwa is what makes English sound natural rather than robotic.
Accent
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The words
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Words that lose a syllable
Chocolate, comfortable, vegetable: fewer syllables than the spelling suggests. Hear the real count.
Magic E words
A silent final E that changes the vowel before it: hat to hate, kit to kite. Hear the difference.
Long A sound words
The /eɪ/ sound in day, rain and eight, spelled six different ways. Train your ear to all of them.
Long E sound words
The long ee sound in see, meat and field. Hear the tense vowel across all its spellings.
Short I sound words
The relaxed short i in sit, big and busy. The single hardest vowel for most learners to place.
Long vs short vowel pairs
Ship or sheep, full or fool, pull or pool. Hear the tense and lax vowel pairs side by side.
Keep practising
Browse every practice list, hear two accents back to back on Compare, or test your ear with the listening quiz.