Day 17 - Dropping the T - Understanding Fast Speech in English

Welcome to Day 17.

When you hear native speakers talk fast,

do you think we often drop sounds?

Meaning we skip letters.

Well, we do. In fact, I just did it.

I did it with the word "often."

Which letter am I skipping?

English with Jennifer

"Often" could be said with or without the T:

Without the T is probably more common in American English,

especially in relaxed conversation

When else do we drop the T?

For that reason, you'll hear people say:

And you'll hear the T dropped between words, for example: just thinking.

Now in the case of "often," we did have a schwa sound in there,

but basically you have the F, T, and N sounds

and I think that's why we tend to drop the T and say "often."

It's also correct to use the T: /ˈɔf tən/

However, there are some words in which the T sound is always dropped:

...are all examples.

Also, we often drop the T after an N, as in...

Look closely and you'll see the pattern.

It's N-T and then a following vowel sound.

And that vowel sound is unstressed, as in TWENty.

That's why it's also common to drop the T

in words that use the prefix "inter-." You'll hear:

But remember it's perfectly fine to say the T.

You can say /ˈtwɛn ti/.

You'll hear /ˈɪn tɚ ˌnɛt/.

But usually in relaxed speech, Americans drop the T.

You're probably familiar with these reduced forms.

Dunno instead of "don't know."

Wanna instead of "want to."

And gonna instead of "going to."

Just remember these are spoken forms, and they really shouldn't be written.

Let's do a quick check.

Will I drop any T in this sentence?

No.

Here's N-T plus a vowel,

but stress is on the second syllable.

So even in fast speech I'll keep the T.

How about this sentence?

We have N-T followed by an unstressed vowel sound,

so yes, I'll drop those Ts:

We also have a T as a middle consonant.

I could drop that, too:

Listen closely.

I'll say a sentence. You try to understand.

That's all for now.

Thanks for watching and happy studies.