ə
mid central (schwa) — a in about, French e in le.
midcentralunroundedreduced
Hear it
Synthesised in your browser from this sound's own recipe — formants for vowels, filtered noise for fricatives, a burst for plosives. A robot mouth, not a recording: what you hear is the physics the symbol describes.
In combination
Sounds change colour depending on their neighbours — coarticulation is why isolated drilling only gets you so far.
Build longer chains in the combination lab.
How each language writes it
| Language | Spellings | Example | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | any unstressed vowel | about əˈbaʊt about | The commonest English vowel. banana = /bəˈnɑːnə/. |
| French | e (open syllable) | petit pəti small | Often dropped in fast speech: p'tit. |
Rows follow the languages you have switched on at the top.