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It's not bray. You would stop on bra without the y

You're half right. The "bre" e is pronounced like pen or bed, not bray.

And here I thought the schwa just wreaked havoc in English.

Outside of my home country of New Zealand, I think very few English speakers pronounce either "pen" or "bed" with a schwa. (actually, even we don't)

No, not "bray", just "bre" as in "bred" (from OP example).

Native Spanish speaker here.

I'm honestly having a hard time listening to the difference between English "li" and "lee". If you mean how "lee" tends to hold the vowel for longer, maybe you're indicating that that syllable holds the phonetic accent in "libre", which you'd be right about. Fundamentally though, they sound the same.

Not sure what you mean by flipping the "r".