Episode Transcript

The Schwa: How One TINY Sound Can Make a HUGE Difference

Welcome to the InFluency Podcast, episode number 9.

Hello everyone, this is episode number 9. I didn’t think I’d ever make it here. I don’t know why, but I just focused on the first five when I just launched the podcast. And now we’re in episode number 9. And I already have like the next 10 episodes planned out, and I can’t wait to share them with you.

I hope you’re having a good day, and, um, today, we’re going to talk about pronunciation a bit. You know that pronunciation is my thing. And notice how I said ‘thing’ without popping my G sound at the end because it ends with an NG, so you don’t really release the G here. ‘thing’. And I hope you’re practicing it with me right now.

Anyway, pronunciation is my thing. And the thing that is my real thing, the thing that I’m really obsessed about is… Drum roll, ladies and gentlemen… The schwa. Yes. The schwa sound /ə/ – the secret of American pronunciation. The sound that is unnoticeable, yet, once you start hearing it, you can’t stop hearing it because, my friends, it’s everywhere.

If you don’t know what the schwa is, then you obviously haven’t been watching any of my YouTube videos cause I think I mention the schwa at least, like, five times in every pronunciation video. Especially when I teach intonation and prosody, which is basically intonation and stress and rhythm. 

And I talk about it a lot because it’s the most common vowel sound in American English. And it’s essential for pronunciation, but also for intonation and the rhythm, and reductions, and knowing where to put the stress in a sentence. And we need to understand this concept. And this is what this episode is all about. 

So let’s get started. Let’s, first of all, understand how to make the schwa sound. Well, basically the last thing you need to think about is how you make it. Because if you try to make it, if you try too hard, then you’re losing the whole purpose of this sound. 

Because this is the most effortless sound a human mouth can make, and it sounds something like this – uh, uh. Can you hear it? uh. So, as I said, you just need to let go of your mouth, of your jaw, of your tongue. Again, no G at the end – ‘tongue’. And just release a sound, and a really short one – uh. 

Now, if you hear something like ‘i’, that means your tongue is too high. If you hear something like ‘aa’, your mouth has to open. If you hear ‘u’, your lips are rounded. So, relax your lips, don’t open your mouth, relax the tongue, uh, release a sound. ‘uh’. 

Now, if it’s hard for you to pronounce the sound, let’s try to pronounce a consonant cluster, like k’g. Like a K sound and a G. k’g. Or p’b. While it may be easier for you to pronounce this consonant cluster, you’ll be surprised to hear that there is a schwa hiding there between those two sounds, because you have to make A sound between those two consonants. Because both of those consonants like the P and the B, and the K and the G are produced in the same place.

So, for you to pronounce both of these sounds, you have to put a break between them. And that mini break, that mini vowel in-between is the schwa. A mini schwa – p’b, p’, uh, uh, uh. k’g, k’, uh, uh, uh. Okay? That’s the schwa. That’s the most common vowel sound in American English. 

And this is also the neutral sound that they make when someone asks them a question, and, them… native speakers. When someone asks a native English speaker a question, and they’re looking for the right words, they would, probably, make a sound. And that sound is very likely to be a schwa. 

“Uhmm, let me think about it”. Right? Right before the M sound, that’s an ‘uh’, that’s the schwa sound. That’s the neutral sound. They don’t think about this sound.

And this is why, if you were to ask a native speaker, “What is the schwa?”, a native speaker who hasn’t studied linguistics or pronunciation, they would have no idea. 

Because it’s not something that you learn and it’s not a legit sound. It’s not a real sound? It’s not like I would say, “Hey, when do you use the O sound?” And they’d be like, “O? Go”. Okay? That’s easy. 

But the ‘uh’ sound is elusive, and, um, tricky. And this is why it’s also tricky for non-native speakers. Because sometimes we don’t even detect it when people speak. And I’m going to talk about that in just a sec, but let’s go back to pronouncing the sound. 

So, we said that to pronounce the schwa sound, the jaw is really relaxed and you just make a sound as your lips are super neutral. uh. We can find it in words like ‘about’, ‘around’, ‘holiday’, ‘sofa’. Okay? So, we looked at a few examples where it’s at the beginning, the middle, and at the end. 

To understand when to use the schwa, we need to understand something about the stress system of American English. Because a schwa is not a pure vowel sound that just exists in particular syllables. Or is represented with a certain set of letters, and then you know, “okay, so when there is OE, then we know that this is a schwa”. 

No, because a schwa is something that happens to a vowel when it’s unstressed. A schwa is a reduction of a vowel sound when the syllable is not stressed. So, this is why we need to talk about the stress system of American English.

In English, there are three types of stresses. It’s how you stress a syllable in a word. Okay? And the syllable is a small unit within the word. So, for example, in the word ‘holiday’, ‘holiday’ has three syllables. Usually it’s the number of vowels in the word. Not the vowel letters, but the vowel sounds. haa-luh-dei, three syllables, holiday. 

Now, notice that I didn’t say ‘haa-lee-dei’. Because the middle vowel is a schwa sound, so I reduced the vowel there to a schwa: ‘haa-luh-dei’. So, we have three vowels here, and three syllables, as a result. Each syllable has a certain type of stress. So, let’s talk about those types of stresses.

First, we have the primary stress. A primary stress is the most dominant syllable in a word. It is longer, louder and higher in pitch. And every content word must have a primary stress and only one. 

So, in the word ‘holiday’, the primary stress falls on the first syllable – HO, HO, HOliday. Right? So, it has this emphasis there.

‘Continue’. The primary stress here is on the second syllable. conTINue. graduAtion. What’s the primary stress here? GraduAtion. A, A, graduA –  higher in pitch, longer than the rest, and a little louder. A, that’s the primary stress. University. What’s the primary stress here? VER, right? Longer, louder, higher in pitch. Great.

Now, once you establish what the primary stress is, now it’s time to identify if the other syllables receive a secondary stress or a weak stress. Now, while you can only have one primary stress in a word, you can have a few secondary stresses and a few weak stresses. 

Now you’re probably asking yourself, “But, what is a secondary stress and what is a weak stress?” So, let’s start at the end. A weak stress is a schwa, okay? Which technically means that if a syllable doesn’t get a primary stress or a secondary stress, the vowel kinda disappears. 

The vowel says, “Okay, I didn’t get any stress. I’m outta here.” And it checks out, and all you’re left with is this small, insignificant sound. The schwa. Don’t tell the schwa I said that. Okay? 

So, you have the primary stress, which is the stressed syllable, and we’ll talk a little bit about how to find the primary stress, but that is a whole another episode. So we will do that in a different episode. 

For now, let’s say you know where the primary stress is, and if you don’t, then just google it. Type ‘how to pronounce’ and then the word on Google, and you’ll see the word written out phonetically. And then the bold syllable is the primary stress. 

So you know that this is the syllable that needs to be longer, louder, and higher in pitch. And make sure you really do go higher in pitch for that word. And that you’re making it a little longer, especially if in your language all the syllables receive the same beat. So louder, longer, higher in pitch.

And then, so, we figured that out. The rest of the syllables, you need to understand if this syllable receives any kind of vowel sound or it’s reduced completely. So, a secondary stress is a pure vowel. 

So you basically pronounce it as you pronounce everything else. You just don’t go higher in pitch or longer or louder. You just pronounce it normally. So, think of the secondary stress as your default pronunciation. 

Or, it’s reduced to a schwa, which is a reduced vowel. This neutral ‘uh’ sound. Now.,I know, I know, it’s not clear just yet, so I’m going to give you a bunch of examples. But again, we have three types of stresses: the primary stress, and there’s only one of that in a word – it’s longer,louder, higher in pitch. 

Or a secondary stress, which is a pure vowel, and that’s how you usually pronounce the vowels. So here you basically don’t need to change anything, or it’s reduced to a schwa, which we will assume right now is that you’re not pronouncing. Okay? 

And because it’s a sound that non-native speakers usually don’t pay attention to, they don’t hear it, and therefore they don’t pronounce it. And this is exactly what we’re trying to do here – to get you to hear it, and to recognize it, and to start using it to become more clear. 

Now, let’s take the word ‘connect’. Took me a sec to think of a word. Let’s take the word ‘connect’. Now, English is not a phonetic language, but most English learners begin their encounter with the language through reading and writing.

And as a result, the representation of the written word is being branded in their brains. And a lot of languages are phonetic, so they assume that what they see in English is what they should say. 

So, the word ‘connect’ is very likely to be pronounced as ‘kɔnekt’ – with a little tiny /ɔ/ sound in-between ‘kɔnekt’.

Now, first, we need to see what is the primary stress. Is it CONnect or is it conNECT? Raise your hand if you think it’s the second one. And if you’re raising your hand right now, on the street or in the car with your kids, then you’re absolutely right. It’s the second syllable – conNECT. Longer, louder, higher in pitch.

But if we were to pronounce it as ‘kɔNEKT’, the next question you need to ask yourself, because you know that the ‘nect’ is the primary stress, is the beginning a secondary stress? So, do we really need that /ɔ/ sound there, or can we reduce it? 

Meaning, do we really, can we just like eliminate the vowel there and see what happens? Can we say ‘kuhNEKT’, or do we need to say ‘kɔNEKT’? If our default  pronunciation is ‘kɔNEKT’, and you reduce that /ɔ/ sound, and it still sounds okay to you – kuhNEKT, or even better… it’s a schwa: kuhNEKT, kuhNEKT. 

Let’s take another word. I’ll say it with my Israeliest accent: ‘alcohol’, ‘alcohol’. It’s what you have in wine and liquor stores. ‘alcohol’.

Now, we have an A there. If we think of all the vowels, we have an A and O and another O. And first we need to ask ourselves, what is the primary stress. Alcohol, right? I’m starting to become more American now. 

By the way, if you’re not sure how to identify the primary stress, just either clap, snap your fingers, nod your head, or stomp your foot when you say the word. Alcohol, do it with me. Alcohol. 

On what syllable did you clap, nod your head, snap your fingers? The first syllable, right? AL, AL. If not, then you will have to tune into my episode where I taught – future episode – where I talk about finding the primary stress in a word. 

But if it’s still not clear to you, remember you always have Google, always have Google, so, or any kind of pronunciation dictionary.

Now, the AL is the primary stress. If I try to pronounce it again phonetically, ‘alcohol’ [with Israeli accent]. Let’s start with the second syllable. What happens if I drop it? Alcohol, alcohol. 

Does it sound okay/or even better? Or, I can put it in brackets, actually. Does it sound okay (or even better) when I drop the sound? Alcohol. I would say yes. Alcohol [with Israeli accent], alcohol. 

Now, I’m deliberately kind of messing up the last sound because I’m trying to get you to tell me if the last syllable is a pure vowel or a reduced bowel. Is it a schwa? 

So, right now, let’s say I’m saying ‘alcoHOL’. What happens if I reduce it? Alcoh’l. Alcoh’l. Does that sound okay? Alcoh’l. If you cringe a little, which is what I did right now, when you reduce something, if it doesn’t feel right, if it just doesn’t fit the way the word sounds in your head, then it is not a schwa. Okay? 

So, I’m giving you really scientific tools here. And what of it is your sheer intuition. Not really scientific, right? But trust your intuition here. So, you try to drop it. If it seems okay and sounds even better, it is very likely a schwa. 

But if it sounds off and weird, you need a vowel there, buddy. And in this case, it’s the ‘aa’ as in father. Alcohol. Alcohol. 

Now. Let’s try another word. America. And I’m going to say it with my accent, with an accent – ‘America’. So, we have A, E, I, and another A, right? ‘America’ [with an accent]. If I pronounce it according to the vowels, okay?

But English is not a phonetic language. And it means that what you see is not what you get. And again, the first thing you need to do is to identify what the primary stress is. America. On what syllable would you snap your fingers, clap your hands, nod your head? America, the ME, right?

Now, what can you reduce? Think about it. I’m going to give you like 10 seconds to think about it. From all these vowels -A-ME-RI-CA, from all  these vowels what can you reduce? What don’t we have to pronounce? 

So, we already agreed that the ME is the primary stress. So, we pronounce it. It’s the E as in red. But what about the rest? Do we pronounce the A, the RI, the CA? 

The truth is that we don’t pronounce any of those vowels because all of them are reduced to a schwa: America, America, America. Yes, so there is no ‘A’ in America, and there is definitely no ‘ee’ in America.

And going back to the example we had at the beginning – ‘holiday’. Again, what is reduced here? HO is the primary stress. HAA. And do we say ‘LEE’? We could. ‘haaleedei’. But if we reduce it, does it sound okay? ‘haaluhdei’? Yes. And it’s even better. ‘haaluhdei’. 

Now, I want you to notice something. When a vowel is reduced to a schwa, it doesn’t only change the pronunciation, it also changes the rhythm. Because if I change a pure vowel into a schwa, which is really, really short, the vowel length is going to be a lot shorter as well. 

So, from this rhythm of like where every syllable has the same length –  ‘ho-li-day’, ‘ho-li-day’. All of a sudden, the ‘ho’ is really long cause it’s the primary stress – ‘haa-luh’ ,really short – holiday. TA-da-da. Holiday, holiday – not ‘holiday’ [with an accent] – holiday. Okay. 

So, it changes the pronunciation, but it changes the rhythm as well. And this is something that is very important as well. If you want to start implementing and integrating that American, British, Australian rhythm into your English. Because it helps you with delivering your message and getting your message across.

Now, here’s one thing I want you to remember. Non-native speakers tend to associate the vowel letter in a weak syllable with a pure vowel sound. 

So, again, whenever there is a weak syllable, a syllable without a stress, a weak stress, and we agreed that there is no vowel sound there, it’s just a schwa. But there is a letter there. There’s always a letter, and it can be A O U I or E, or any combination of the five. 

So, there are no rules. It can be any of those. And because we’re used to reading English, we associate a sound to the vowel letter. And usually we associate the pure vowel sound that goes with the vowel letter. 

So, the letter A we will probably analyze it as ‘aa’, like in America. And the letter E is going to be associated with ‘e’,  like in ‘man/e/gement’. We may say that instead of ‘management’, ‘I’ is going to be an EE. ‘hol/ee/day’ instead of ‘holiday’. Or ‘modeefay’ instead of ‘maaduhfay’. 

O is obviously going to be an ‘ɔ’ – c/ɔ/mputer instead of c/uh/mputer, right – no ‘ɔ’ sound. And a U is often going to be an ‘oo’ sound – ‘foc/oo/s’ instead of ‘foc/uh/s’.

Because we don’t always detect the schwa, the brain filters out sounds that don’t exist in our native tongue. And then you hear the schwa sound when people speak, but your brain doesn’t detect that sound. 

Because it doesn’t exist in your native tongue the brain is looking for the right category to fit in sounds, new sounds that don’t exist.

And if it doesn’t exist in your native tongue, it’s very likely to filter it out. But you still need something there cause you detect a sound. So you need more information. 

And then you go to the written word, even though it’s not a phonetic language. And your brain is kind of like bringing up the spelling of the word. And if there is an O there, you will automatically put an ‘ɔ’ sound there. 

And if there is an A you are very likely  to put an ‘aa’ sound there. And with I, same thing, ‘ee’. Because this is the missing information, and most languages have those pure five vowel sounds – like the five vowel letters of American English.

Tricky? I think so. The brain plays tricks on us, so we start hearing sounds that don’t actually exist. Yes, I’m telling you, we hear sounds that don’t exist. 

Because I once had a long conversation with a student. I might even dare to say that it was an argument because he said that there is an ‘ɔ’ in computer. And I said, no, there isn’t. And he said, yes, I can hear it when you say it. 

Here, say it. And I say ‘computer’. And he said, “There it is. You just said an ‘ɔ’. And I said, “No, I didn’t, c/uh/mputer.” “There’s an ‘ɔ’ right there.” And we went on and on and on, and I did it in slow motion – ‘kuhm-pju-tuhr’. “No, now you’re just exaggerating.” Like, but that’s how you say it!

Anyway, so, sometimes the brain is so deceiving that you believe that you’re hearing a sound, you’re actually hearing a sound that doesn’t exist. Because it’s in the spelling and it’s pronounced with such a neutral sound that your brain just doesn’t detect. Okay. 

So, the first step is to recognize the sound. To hear it right now, when I say it, ‘uh’: ‘kuhm’ -‘kuhm-pju-t̬uhr’, ‘uh-bawt’, ‘kuhn-di-shuhn’, ‘haas-pi-duhl’, ˈpaa-pjuh-luhr’. ˈpaa-pjuh-luhr’, not ˈpaa-pju-laar’ – ˈpaa-pjuh-luhr’.

Are you starting to hear all those schwas? ‘kuhn-di-shuhn’ – ‘shuhn’, ‘gra-muhr’ – ‘muhr’, ‘gra-dju-ai-shuhn’ – ‘shuhn’, ‘af-ruh-kuh’, ‘af-ruh-kuh’.  It’s not ‘af-ree-kaa’ in English. ‘af-ruh-kuh’. ‘paa-suh-bi-luh-dee’ – ‘paa-suh-bi-luh-dee’, ‘puh-lees’.

Are you starting to hear all those schwas? It’s not ‘po-lees’ – ‘puh-lees’. Congratulations. Congratulations. So, we have a long word here. A bunch of syllables.  So, we should have all types of stresses here. The primary stress, secondary stress, and weak stress.

So, we said that the primary stress is longer, louder, higher in pitch, and we always have a primary stress. CongratuLAtions, right. LAY. That’s the primary stress.

But what about the first syllable? Is it ‘c/ɔ/ngratulations’, or can we reduce it to ‘kən’? ‘congra’. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. So it’s a schwa. ‘kən’.

What about the next syllable? ‘græ’ or ‘grə’? ‘kəngrə’. ‘kəngrə’, /kənɡrətʃəleɪʃənz/? If I reduce it, it just sounds rushed and unclear. And that is because it’s a secondary stress. We need to have a vowel there, so we need to pronounce it. In this case, it’s the ‘æ’ as in cat – ‘kəngræ’. ‘kəngræ’

Now, is it ‘too’ – ‘congra-too’? So, first of all, the T here is not a T, it’s a ‘dj’ sound. And do we say ‘congradj/oo/lations’, or can we say ‘congradj/ə/lay’?

We know that the ‘lay’ is the primary stress, so we pronounce it fully. But if we can reduce the ‘djoo’ to ‘djuh’ and it sounds okay, or even better, it’s a schwa – ‘congratulation’, or ‘-tions’.

‘Congratula/ʃənz/’, right. And then we reduce it. It’s not ‘ʃionz’, it’s not ‘congratula/ʃion/’. So, that’s a schwa as well, the ‘ION’ at the end is always reduced to a schwa. Always.

Now, I want you to think about all these types of stresses, as if they are people. And they are people going to a party. And in a party you always have the extrovert, right?

Like the person who is the center of the party, and he or she are like talking, talking, talking. Everyone’s around them, everything’s around them. That’s the primary stress.

Now, you have the secondary stress, which is like the ambivert. It’s, you know, like that type of person that won’t be the center of attention, but they like the, the, the people, and the hang and they don’t mind like talking to people, right? They’re okay with it.

They also like to be alone and left out, left alone. But in this case, in the party, they do chill, and they’re like standing around that, you know, the extrovert, the primary stress, and they just listen. And then there is the schwa, the weak stress, the introvert that is just like looking for an opportunity to just take a step back and not be so visible.

I just, I just want to be in the back room to chat with my friends. Like I don’t want to really be here right now. Too many people, too loud, the music is so noisy. I’m such a schwa, like I don’t like parties, and I don’t like to be around a lot of people in, like, social parties and gatherings and stuff. So I always like to, kinda like, chill in the back.

So, the schwa is just, like, allowing the other syllables, the other people to shine, right? That’s the schwa. It’s like a very considerate syllable. “I’m just gonna take a step back”, so that the primary stress will really be noticeable.

Because then, the word is unclear, right? Cause you have to distinguish the primary stress from the rest of the syllables. And the schwa helps you do that. Because if you don’t, then ‘CONvict’ and ‘conVICT’ are going to sound exactly the same – ‘c/ɔ/nvict’, ‘c/ɔ/nvict’. right.

So, this is how you distinguish between them. Because in ‘CONvict’ the stresses on the first syllable and the second syllable is reduced, a schwa. ‘CONvict’ versus ‘conVICT’: the first syllable is reduced, a schwa. The schwa takes a step back to allow the primary stress, ‘vict’, to shine. How considerate.

Okay. So you can think about it like that as well. So the schwa is a very considerate syllable that just allows the sounds around it to shine, whether it’s the primary stress or the secondary stress that needs to be there, that wants a little bit of the attention, but it’s not like over the top, like the primary stress.

I hope that makes sense. If not, you can just like, go back to the beginning and listen to my explanation there. It’s a bit more logical, but you got to get the idea that not all the syllables are pronounced the same. And they don’t have the same energy, they don’t have the same beat, like, the same rhythm.

And once you get that, you start hearing it. And once you start hearing it, you start making it. And when you start making it, you start creating a difference in how you speak and how you stress words. And that’s how you start having more impact when you speak, you engage people. And this is the secret of the schwa.

I’ll tell you this as well. Like, I think that when you get stuck with pronouncing long words, it’s usually because of the schwa. It doesn’t matter if you pronounce the word ‘computer’ with an ‘ɔ’ – ‘c/ɔ/mputer’, everyone will understand you.

If you say ‘hol/ɪ/day’, everyone will understand you because there is an underlying vowel there. The reason why you’re saying ‘hol/ɪ/day’ because originally, in the word, people know that there must’ve been like an ‘ɪ’ sound there.

And if you were to ask people to say ‘holiday’ slowly, they would probably say ‘ho-l/ɪ/- ɪ, ɪ, ɪ -day’. They  won’t say ‘ho-l/ə/-day’, if they say it really, really slowly. So there is an underlying vowel there, in the brain.

So, if you mispronounce it, and if you put the vowel there, they’ll get it. Okay. But it will interfere with your clarity when it comes to all those long words, because the schwa helps you focus on what’s important. And that’s the stressed syllables.

Just like in ‘congratulations’, or ‘impossibility’, or ‘creativity’, and all of those long words that you might get stuck with. ‘personalization’. You might get stuck saying it, but if you understand what syllable to stress and what syllable to reduce, it kind of like creates that rhythm that is there to help you get through this word easily.

Because that’s how English is spoken. Because when you understand what you need to reduce and what you need to emphasize, you stop putting emphasis, or you stop pronouncing sounds that don’t exist.

Therefore, investing more energy than you should. You want to be stingy with the number of sounds that you make when you speak English, because there are so many sounds.

So you want to be very protective of how much effort you actually put into speaking. And understanding the schwa and using the schwa will also help you, right next to clarity, to invest less energy into speaking. And this is something that is important.

In another episode in the future – I don’t know when exactly, you can find it in my YouTube channel – I will talk about reductions of full phrases and full words in sentences.

So, whatever I talked about here, like the reduction of syllables within words, happens in larger context in phrases and sentences. Because, like we have ‘ho-li-day’ – primary, weak, secondary stresses – we also have these types of stresses in phrases and sentences.

And, in this case, instead of a syllable, it’s a word, like “talk to me”. “Talk” is the primary stress here. “to” is reduced to a schwa. “me” is a secondary stress. “Talk-to-me” – “ho-li-day”, right.

So, this is why this schwa is so freaking essential. Because it’s not just about the pronunciation of words, it’s about understanding the rhythm of English and understanding intonation. And, really, it’s about being clear, and it’s so much fun.

I’m gonna make T-shirts with a schwa sound. I swear, I promise. And when it’s out, I’m going to let you know, um, because, and I’m gonna think of a cute copy to put right above or right below, is I think we should all have a schwa T-shirt.

Okay. I hope this helped you understand a bit more about the schwa. If you’re still confused, then I recommend to listen to this episode again. Because it will make a lot more sense once you listen to it the second time.

Also, just open your ears and listen to people speaking, listen to YouTube videos, use YouGlish, youglish.com. You type in a word, and then it shows you a video where the speaker there uses that particular word, and that’s an awesome tool.

And you can listen to it clearly. You can slow it down and then the brain has time to focus on the actual pronunciation, and you start hearing it. I highly recommend you to use any of those tools, but to really, really listen. Okay?

Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t assume how the word is pronounced. Really listen, like a baby listening to a word for the first time. Because spelling has a huge impact on how you perceive the word and how you pronounce the word.

And what we want to do here is to detach pronunciation from spelling. And the only way to do it is to listen closely to how the language is pronounced. And by listening or looking for the schwas, it’s the first step you can take towards understanding English better.

Okay. So, please let me know what you think about this episode. Send me a DM @hadar.accentsway at Instagram, or you can go to YouTube because usually I publish this as a YouTube video.

So you can go there and check out my other videos about the schwa if you want. But I think that is by far my most elaborate explanation about the schwa. Elaborate. How many schwas do we have here? ‘ilabuhruht’ – ‘buh’, ‘ruht’.  Very good, two.

Also, if you haven’t yet, please, subscribe wherever you’re listening to this episode, whether it’s Spotify or iTunes or Stitcher, Google podcasts. Subscribe, so you get updates whenever I publish or release a new episode.

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Thank you so, so much, and what can I tell you? I really appreciate the fact that you decided to tune in to this episode and to this podcast. And I hope I can provide a lot more value for you in future episodes as well.

Have a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day, and I’ll speak to you in the next episode.