Help! how to pronounce the ending syllable of words like <span title=""happiness,homeless,business"?">"happiness,homeless,busin...</span>

Question

i am frustrated by the pronunciation of "ness,less" in the words like happiness,homeless,busines

i don't know how to pronounce the letter "E" in those words.

it's "ər" or less (lĕs) ?

thank you for your help

Answer 1

You&#039;re on the right track using a schwa (ə). It is a sort of &quot;non-sound,&quot; really (which is what the ə represents). You sort of &quot;skip over&quot; the &quot;e&quot; in &quot;ess.&quot; In my case, I tend to say &quot;happiniss,&quot; &quot;homelessniss,&quot; and &quot;bizniss.&quot; But I&#039;m American - you might get a Brit who says it differently.

Answer 2

the pronunciation is different for some of them - english is wierd that way.

happiness - ehss. as in the way the letter S is pronounced (think of the alphabet, or the ABC song)

business, homeless - ihss, as in p**s. (sorry, i know its not a very polite word)

hapiness can also be pronounced with an &#039;ihss as in p**s&#039; sound, but i hear &#039;ehss&#039; more often.

Answer 3

Hap PE nehss

HOm lehss

biz nehss

I know I didn&#039;t use a shwa, but all in all it is the same noise....in American English, no one cares if you don&#039;t pronounce the last syllable correctly in these words as Americans let the end of the word slide off into nothingness anyway.....just put a grunting &quot;eh&quot; sound in there.

But if you want to get real technical...think of the -ness as a bird&#039;s nest and then substiture the &quot;t&quot; with an &quot;s&quot;, and -less as lest and do the same...it is the exact same vowel sound.