The H in English (how to pronounce, silent H and more) (2024)

TRANSCRIPT

Hello there, it’s Hadar, and this is the Accent’s Way. Today we’re gonna talk about how to pronounce the word ‘schedule’, ‘schedule’.

In this video I’ll be answering Jyotee’s question. Jyotee is from India and her name means light. Beautiful name.

So, let’s begin with the fact that there are actually two ways to pronounce this word: SKE-j’l – two syllables, and SKE-juw-w’l – three syllables. SKE-j’l – SKE-juw-w’l .

We’ll start with the first pronunciation, the two syllables because there are less sounds here which means – easier to pronounce!

Let’s begin with SKE – an S sound that shifts to K, and then you open it to the EH as in ‘red’. SKE. Make sure not to add any vowels before, so it’s not ‘eske’ ‘eschedule’, but start with S, SKE. And then we have j’l. it’s a /j/ sound, a schwa, and a dark L. The dark L is created here: j’l, L, L. It’s not, j’l (light L).

You don’t just bring the tip of the tongue up, you have to create this tension, and this tension makes it sound as if there is an O sound right before the L. Almost as if we’re adding the letter O. j’l.
SKE-j’l. And if it’s still not clear, go ahead and watch my video “How to pronounce the L sound in English”.

‘Schedule’: the first syllable is the primary stress so it’s higher in pitch and longer – ‘schedule’. “Let me look at my schedule”. The other option is adding another syllable right there in the
middle: SKE-juw-w’l. So we begin with SKE then it’s ‘juw’ – a J sound and the tense ‘uw’ as in food, and then /uhl/ at the end.

But when we connect the second and third syllable we have an intrusive sound, because it’s an /uw/ sound that shifts to another vowel and then we add a /w/ – SKE-ju(w)-w’l. schedule, schedule. The last two syllables have to be really really quick, ‘schedule’. So: SKE-j’l Or SKE-juw-w’l. By the way, this is the American pronunciation of the word.

Let’s turn it into a fun practice and write down in the comments below one sentence with the word “schedule”. That way, we’ll create a bunch of sentences for us to practice together because you know, first of all, practice makes better, so we always want to practice, but also, you can’t just practice the words separately, you always want to use it in context. Okay?

Same thing for sounds: if you’re practicing the dark L here, then, of course, you want to use it in words and not just create that L sound over and over again. And the word always needs to be in
context, because we use sounds and words always in context. And that creates the fluency and flow. Okay? So write down your creative sentence right here below the video.

Thank you so much for watching. Have a wonderful week and I’ll see you next week in the next video. Bye.