What is elision? Improve your English speaking and listening

Hello everybody.

So, in today’s video we're going to be looking at a feature of natural

English pronunciation.

This is something that we use all of the time, and,

in fact, something I've just naturally used right now.

Being aware of it is definitely something that

will improve your listening skills, and, possibly your speaking skills too.

But, before we start, if you haven't subscribed to

the channel yet, please do so now,

so that you never miss out on any of our wonderful videos.

So, now you're officially a subscriber of the channel,

let's get on with the video.

George, you've done so well and now you are so close to being our champion.

To win, you just need to pronounce this last word correctly.

Yeah, okay.

Vegetable.

I'm afraid that’s incorrect. George, you are eliminated. What?

Vegetable.

Four syllables.

Vegetable. What do you mean I'm wrong? I'm not wrong, that’s right. It's four.

So, what happened there? George was so sure.

What did he do wrong? The answer is elision.

So, elision is where syllables are removed from words during

natural speech to make them either easier or quicker to say.

For example, with this word here, this syllable is removed in

natural speech, meaning that it's pronounced vegetable,

with only three syllables and not four.

Being aware of elision can help with your listening skills, as you now know

that not all words have all of their syllables pronounced.

It can also help improve your speaking by making you sound more natural.

There are plenty more common words in English that contain this feature.

For example, these four words.

Listen to how they have a syllable removed in natural speech.

So, the first one is pronounced with two syllables, favourite, favourite.

The next one is pronounced with two syllables too, restaurant, restaurant.

The next one is pronounced with three syllables,

interesting, interesting.

Finally, this word is pronounced with two syllables, history, history.

My favourite restaurant has an interesting history.

My favourite restaurant has an interesting history.

Here are some other common words with syllables removed in natural speech.

So now you know all about elision, where syllables are removed from

some words in natural spoken English.

Be aware of it, and listen out for it next time you're

speaking to someone with a high level of English, or,

if you're really ambitious, try and use it when you’re speaking English.

So there you go, elision, something you may not

have noticed before, but something I bet you'll

notice from now on, and something you'll

definitely see in all of our videos.

So, again, just a reminder to please subscribe to the channel if you haven't

done so already.

To finish, I'd just like to say thank you for watching.

I’ll see you next time for more language fun.