Mouth Posture Phase 1: Building the Center of Gravity (Jaw + Schwa) | Sound like an American Native!

[@ymj9481]

This is amazing! I've been watching this and training myself every day. Can't wait to see the video for phase 2👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[@enriquegonzalez2844]

Great, awsome advice, I think that it should be the first lesson that we learners of English must start with. Thanks for your job.

[@iiAbdullah635]

29:54 True schwa is just the normal schwa without the hinge

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

? Can you elaborate? Are you talking about when I mentioned the small upside down e vs the bigger upside down e? They're both "true schwa" (as I mention in the video), but the smaller one is just shorter, faster, and lazier. The hinge is always there and all the other settings are, too. We just add a tiny bit more sound pressure and space for the bigger one to make it clearer (meaning more articulated), like with all sounds

[@personalJoke]

It took me years to learn how to speak with my mouth almost closed because teachers (not just one, but several) told me Latinos have very big vowels and English is a consonantal language. So, I acquired the ability to speak mostly by jumping from consonant to consonant. Now I have to undo this. Did I get it right? OMG, I am in shock!!!!! Also, the only way for me to know whether or not I am doing the right schwa sound is by practicing with an app. If the app says that I am doing it right, then I move on. So, I have no problem scoring "Excellent" when the schwa sound is isolated. However, I am failing in producing the schwa sound when it is found in some words, as in the word "Variety. The same happens to me with the /U/ sound in words as in "School".

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

There are different ways of looking at things, and I can kinda see why they might tell you that. However, I assume that all or most of those teachers spoke British English (or maybe were non-natives) because British English uses a more closed posture than American English. Btw, I've never heard of any teacher giving that advice. It's always the opposite, at least if the teacher is American. As for the schwa, you do need feedback during this process. If the app is reliable enough, it can give you that feedback, otherwise you need a real person. In terms of putting the schwa into words, there's a reason you have trouble. The whole word sits inside the mouth posture. Put another way,, it's not enough to be able to make a sound or a series of sounds (like in a word). If you don't have good enough posture and you don't build ALL the sounds into that posture well enough (including transitioning from sound to sound, which requires a core posture), you'll always come up short. Sounds don't just float in the mouth. This course takes you from your native posture to full American posture step-by-step (or at least it will when I finish it haha). But the phase 0 and phase 1 work is absolutely critical to master more than anything else, especially for being better understood 🙂 Just be patient and work on mastering these two phases. Jumping into words is phase 3, so don't even worry about that right now.

[@iiAbdullah635]

1:07, I tried to use it in English I sounded clearer, and my voice also became lighter for some reason. I tried to use it in my native language to see how my native language is different from English, and it was worse than I thought. I sounded like a 7-year-old kid. Edit: I tried this in front of a mirror. I think I was making my jaw more open 60%-70%. In my language is 25%-35%(I think). that's why It was so bad

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

See how these little physical details can make a huge difference? That's why we need to cover this stuff before actually making any sounds 🙂