Great question today from a YouTube Subscriber:
Hi, I’m a Languages major, and I had a question on the words “because” & “before”. I’ve noticed that American people happen to say “bah-’cause” or “bah-fore” instead of “bih-cause”/”bi-fore”. Is that an mistake? I have checked the correct pronunciation on several dictionaries, and they do not give any information about this. I don’t know if you’re familiar with phonetics, but, phonetically, I would write “bah-cause” with a schwa.
This question is in response to my video on How to say BECAUSE. As I say again and again, my videos are short. Really short. This is by design so that you can learn quickly and on the go. But it leads to some confusion at times.
Bah-fore and bih-cuz are correct. These are the unstressed versions that you hear in connect speech/conversation. And correct, phonetically it would be a schwa. Thanks for pointing out a good mistake. I stressed the vowel while teaching which changed it completely. You can learn more about stress on my blog.