8 tasks to test your pronunciation

Hello, and welcome, everybody.

Okay, so today's video is a little bit different to normal.

It's an interactive video

in which I'll be teaching a feature of pronunciation

and you are going to be my students.

So, the key to today's video is participation.

I'm going to be setting you guys some tasks,

and in order

for you guys to get the most from the video,

you need to complete these tasks as best as you possibly can.

The first thing you need to know is

that you need to pause the video when you see this symbol.

That will then give you enough time to complete the tasks.

And you will also need a pen and paper.

As ever, if you're new to the channel,

don't forget to click subscribe.

This means you'll never miss out on any of our great videos.

But anyway, grab your pen and paper and let's get on

with today's lesson.

Okay, so let's begin with task one.

You need to pause the video, quickly read the text,

and then write down

what is the topic of the conversation.

The topic of the conversation

was talking about their weekend plans.

Okay, so moving on to task two.

In this task,

what I would like you to do is to read this section

of the conversation and predict the missing language.

Okay, so I'm not going to give you the answers

for task two straight away,

because in task three, what I want you to do

is to please listen to the audio

and then tick your answers if they're correct,

or change them if they're incorrect.

We're thinking of watching a rugby match.

If we go, could you come?

Sure, I'm not doing anything Sunday.

Awesome.

The plan is to leave my house and drive there about 11:00.

You know where I live, don't you?

I think so.

You live near the train station, right?

Right, but let me give you my mobile number,

just in case you get lost.

Okay, here's the answers.

Please make sure you have the correct answer written

on your sheet.

In task four,

you're going to listen to the audio again, however,

I want you to pay particular attention

to the pronunciation of the missing words,

and think to yourself,

what surprises me about the pronunciation?

We're thinking of watching a rugby match.

If we go, could you come?

Sure, I'm not doing anything Sunday.

Awesome.

The plan is to leave my house and drive there about 11:00.

You know where I live, don't you?

I think so.

You live near the train station, right?

Right, but let me give you my mobile number,

just in case you get lost.

Okay, so if your answer

to the question was something like,

they sounded really different to how I expected, don't worry.

I'm here to help.

In today's video,

we're going to be looking at feature of connected speech,

which is often one of the most difficult challenges

for learners to overcome when listening.

We use connected speech when we speak naturally,

and we do things like cut our words up,

blend them together,

or remove some phonemes and words completely,

meaning it is sometimes pronounced very differently

to how it's written.

So, today, we're going

to be looking at something called coalescent assimilation,

and three particular examples of it.

To begin, what we need to do is learn the three sounds

that are represented by these three symbols

from the phonetic alphabet.

First of all,

this symbol represents the sound ch,

like in the word church, ch, ch, ch.

And this symbol here represents the sound j,

like in the word jump, j, j, j.

Okay, so this symbol here represents the sound sh,

like in the word ship, sh, sh, sh.

Task five is a simple but important one.

I need you to copy down the following table

because you're going to need it for the next task.

Okay, so in the next task,

I'm going to say one of the phrases from task two,

for example, this phrase, and I want you think.

Think about what sound is being produced

and then write it in the correct place on the table.

Okay, so listen to this phrase

and think about what sound is being produced

and then write it in the correct section.

Don't you?

Don't you?

Don't you?

Okay, now listen to this phrase

and think about what sound is being produced and then write

in the correct section.

Just in case you.

Just in case you.

Just in case you.

And finally, listen

to this phrase and think about what sound is being produced

and then write it in the correct section.

Could you.

Could you.

Could you.

So, these should be your answers.

Okay, look at this table and let me clarify

how these sounds are produced when we speak.

The t and y sounds combine to form a ch sound,

like here in don't you.

The d and y sounds combine to form a j sound,

like here in could you.

And the s and y combine here to form a sh sound,

like in, in case you.

Task seven, your next task, is very simple one.

Again, what I need you to do is to pause the video

and copy the table down.

So, in your next task,

I need you to look at five example phrases and,

using the rules here,

put them in the correct place in the table

in the extra examples column.

Let's have a look at the answers.

Number one, do you want to,

has the j sound, do you want to,

so it goes here.

Number two, I miss you,

has the sh sound, I miss you,

so it goes here.

Number three, can't you, has the ch sound, can't you,

so it goes here.

Number four, didn't you, has the ch sound, didn't you,

so it goes here.

And number five,

should you, has the j sound, should you,

so it goes here.

Okay, so I've got one more task for you people to do,

task nine, however,

it doesn't involve using a pen and paper.

You've got two options.

The first option is to upload a video to Instagram

in which you say one

of the phrases with coalescent assimilation from today's video

and then tag us with the hashtag,

#learnenglishwithcambridge.

Or your second option is simply to comment below with examples

of coalescent assimilation in film and song lyrics.

The choice is yours, option one, option two,

or you could do both.

So, that's a wrap.

I really hope you've enjoyed today's very different video.

Thank you for all your hard work and participation.

As mentioned before,

if you're new to the channel, don't forget to subscribe.

As always, thanks for stopping by,

and I'll see you next time for more language fun.