The English mid-central /ə/, especially when stressed, has no counterpart in Portuguese, which causes the possibility of phonological error in words like but /bət/ and rubber /'rəbər/.
Also, its unstressed and reduced form, named “schwa”, is likely to become a persistent problem if we consider that Portuguese unstressed vowels are not normally reduced. Very likely Brazilian ESL students will be influenced by spelling in this area. Example: the word photographer might be pronounced /fô'tógrafêr/ instead of the correct /fə'tagrəfər/.
Also, its unstressed and reduced form, named “schwa”, is likely to become a persistent problem if we consider that Portuguese unstressed vowels are not normally reduced. Very likely Brazilian ESL students will be influenced by spelling in this area. Example: the word photographer might be pronounced /fô'tógrafêr/ instead of the correct /fə'tagrəfər/.
Here's a BBC video on it:
I personally think this is the main reason for what I like to call the strangeness In English, specially for Brazilian learners(syllabic timed language).
Without the knowledge of its existence, together with sounds linking abilities, English learning proves to
be quite complicated when only focused on Grammar and Vocabulary.
For this reason, use your many different listening sources, including those found here, to try to identify the schwa sound and its surrounding linking sounds!
No comments:
Post a Comment