You probably learned about the schwa (Ə) somewhere in the lower grades, and it didn’t make a bit of sense, so you didn’t bother to remember anything that was taught. The teacher gave us plenty of examples, but we couldn't figure out how they were supposed to sound alike, or what the real soundof a Ə is. Okay. TomScott brings it back with a much better explanation: the schwa is a vowel that is so unstressed that we cannot really define it. Of course, Tom is British, and thinks that the vowel sound in “bath” is made in the back of the mouth. But he does shine some light on phonetics for us in his latest video.