GIVE ANSWERS - English

Firstly, the schwa sound is the short unaccented (unstressed) vowel sound that sounds like ”uh” or a very short ”e”. Phonetically, it’s written as ”ə”. ”ʌ” and ”ɛ” are also short vowel sounds, but longer than the schwa sound and can also be accented (stressed).

Dictionaries such as Merrian-Webster get very sloppy with their phonetic spelling and write ”ə” in a word when they should have ”ʌ” or ”ɛ”. I have no idea why they do it. Perhaps editors who don’t understand basic phonetics?

You can’t make a schwa sound when you are stressing a syllable with a short vowel sound in it - it’s not possible because the mouth and jaw are completely relaxed when you make an ”ə”. When you stress a syllable, your mouth and jaw also stresses to some degree!!!! The mouth changes shape a little and you make a different sound!!! Simple physics...

I think that the writer of the article you were reading probably doesn’t know what he or she is talking about....

If you are looking at British English verses American English pronunciation, then this is a different question. British English speakers often pronounce a vowel sound as a schwa while Americans use ”ʌ” or ”ɛ” instead. This is one reason why words sometimes ”sound longer” in American English than British English.