English Lesson: Use Reductions to Sound like a Native English Speaker!

Hi, Bob the Canadian here.

As you learn English, you'll want to sound

as much like a native English speaker as you can.

One of the best ways to sound more like a native speaker

is to use reductions.

Reductions are when we take sentences like,

"I want to eat ice cream."

and we reduce it to, "I wanna eat ice cream."

You'll notice that we take the two words, "want to",

and we kind of squish them together into a new word,

which isn't really a word, "wanna".

So we say things like,

"I want to eat ice cream."

but when we say them out loud we say, "I wanna eat ice cream."

In this English lesson

I will teach you 10 English reductions

that will help you sound more like a native English speaker.

(upbeat music)

So the next reduction I wanna teach you takes

the words, "let me", and it kind of squishes them

into a new word, "lemme".

I know it looks kind of funny,

but we do say this.

We take sentences like, "Let me show you how to do that."

and we compress it into,

"Lemme show you how to do that."

The next reduction I want to teach you takes

the words, "going to",

and it squishes them into the word, "gonna".

Again, I do wanna remind you

that the reductions themselves aren't real words,

they're just how we say it out loud

when we say it quickly.

So I could say that, "Tonight I am going to eat ice cream.",

and the reduced form would be,

"Tonight I'm gonna eat ice cream."

Notice how I took the words, "going to",

and I squished them into the word, "gonna".

So my son sometimes can buy lunch at school,

but he doesn't always have money.

So sometimes he will say,

"Hey, can you give me money to buy lunch today?"

But what he actually says is,

"Hey, can you gimme money to buy lunch today?"

So another reduction is when we take the words, "give me",

and we squish them together to make the word, "gimme".

So I hope you're enjoying the fact

that I'm putting sentences on the screen

and then pretending to squish them,

because I could have just stood in front of a whiteboard

to teach this lesson,

or I coulda just stood in front of a whiteboard.

So the phrase "could have",

we take the words, "could have",

is another reduction when we say this in spoken English,

we usually say, "coulda".

So sometimes there are things that we must do.

There are things that we have to do,

right now I have to make this video quickly

because the sun is coming out.

But if I said this with a reduction I would say,

"I hafta make this video quickly."

We take the words, "have" and "to",

and we squish them again into a new word, "hafta".

Again, remember these new words are not words

that you would write down.

They are simply how we say the reduction

when we are speaking English quickly

or when we are speaking

as a native English speaker would speak.

So sometimes my students won't know the answer

to the question I'm asking

and they will say, "I dunno."

This is probably one of the most common reductions

in English, "I dunno."

And it's probably one that you've heard before.

Sometimes they just use the contraction

and say, "I don't know."

But rarely do they actually say, "I do not know."

They don't usually say the full and proper sentence.

Usually I hear, "I don't know." or "I dunno."

Usually it's, "I dunno."

So sometimes I will have a student come

to class without a pen

and they will say they can't do any work

because they don't have anything to write with.

And I'll usually ask them,

"Don't you have a pen in your locker?"

But usually I'll use a reduction and I'll say,

"Doncha have a pen in your locker?"

Doncha's kind of a funny one.

It's when we take, "don't you",

and we squish it into, "doncha".

And it sounds a little funny even when I say it right now

but it is a reduction that we use all the time.

Often I will say to people,

"Doncha have a pen in your locker?

"Doncha have a pencil in your pencil case?"

So this next reduction takes the words, "got" and "you",

and it squishes them into either, "gotya", or "gotcha".

So a full sentence would be,

I got you some coffee from the coffee shop,

or if I reduce it, I could say,

I gotya some coffee from the coffee shop,

or I gotcha some coffee from the coffee shop.

So sometimes people go and do something fun

and when they come back you might say,

"Did you have a good time?"

But what you would probably actually say is,

"Didya have a good time?"

We take the words, "did" and "you",

and we kinda squish them into, "didja".

A weird looking word,

but it is actually what we say a lot in English.

Didja have a good time?

Well hey, thanks for watching this video

on English reductions.

I hope that you were able to learn a lot of them.

I hope me squishing sentences on the screen

will help you remember them.

I'm Bob the Canadian, and you are learning English with me.

Thank you so much for watching.

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just a little bit more English.