Day 12 - Reducing IS, OF - Understanding Fast Speech in English

Hi. It's Day 12.

You know what's one of the harder things to hear?

It's a word that's part of a contraction.

Like the verb IS.

We'll talk about IS and OF in this lesson.

IS, as you know, often contracts to a single letter: 'S.

You heard a few examples earlier.

what's / it's / that's

It's quick and it's quiet.

But you need to hear it in order to understand what someone's saying.

OR...what someone is saying.

As you heard, these contractions with IS are not always written.

Look at these sentences.

Does each apostrophe + S stand for "is"?

No.

Take a look.

"Nick's dad" ...that's a possessive form. His dad.

"It has been"...is the present perfect.

But in fast speech I'll use apostrophe + S

in each of these sentences. Listen.

So your ear needs to recognize

what that 'S stands for.

OF is also quick and hard to catch.

We can reduce the vowel sound to a schwa,

but we might even drop the F altogether.

So instead of "one of the harder things,"

you may hear "one uh the harder things."

Listen closely.

I'll say a sentence or phrase.

You try to understand.

That's all for now.

Thanks for watching and happy studies.