Reductions

An important part of stress is reducing. You know that one syllable gets the stress in a word. In words of more than one syllable, the other syllables are reduced.

There are three sounds we reduce in English.

They are:

vowels - reduced to /ə/

t - reduced to /d/, /ʔ/, or Ø

-ing - /Iŋ/


Examples:

1.

Take the word computer.

Computer is stressed on the second syllable. That means the first and third syllables are reduced.

o is reduced to ə

and

t is reduced to d

2.
Take the word guitar.

Guitar is stressed on the second syllable. That means the first syllable is reduced.

/gətɑr/

Here's a song where the stress in guitar is clear to hear.