Linking Consonant to Consonant -- American English Pronunciation

In this American English pronunciation video,

we're going to go over

linking consonant to consonant.

Linking is an important part

of American English.

If we break between each word,

it sounds very choppy.

But in American English,

we like to link words together

for a smooth sound.

I've already made videos on linking

Vowel to Vowel and Consonant to Vowel.

Linking Consonant to Consonant

happens all the time in American English.

In that sentence right there

it happened four times:

ng-kk, nt-tt, nt-hh, and ll-th.

We can’t cover every example

of linking consonant to consonant

as there are simply too many combinations

for this video,

but I will give you some examples.

First let's talk about

linking the same consonant.

Take the example 'gas station'.

It's not 'gas station',

with two separate S's, it's 'gas station':

one S, connecting the two words.

I'm going to the gas station.

I already used this example

last year when I took a road trip.

Click here to see that video,

or go to the video description.

Another example: some might, some might.

Again, not some might, but some might,

connected with one M. Some might think so.

The rule gets a little complicated

when we bring in Stop Consonants.

The six stop consonants are

t, d, p, b, k, and g.

When these meet in between two words,

like 'hot today',

you have to stop the air

to signify the first consonant,

then release the sound into the next word.

So, it's not 'hahtoday',

but 'hot today', with a stop.

So to make that stop,

I'm just holding the air in my throat,

for a fraction of a second.

Another example, 'bad dog'.

It's not 'baadog', but bad dog, with a stop.

This is true in general when we're linking

a stop consonant to any other consonant.

For example, peanut butter –

stopped T, released B, peanut butter.

Not 'peanuh butter', with no stop,

but also not 'peanut butter'

with a released T, but peanut butter.

Flip phone.

Here we stop the sound

with the lips in position for the P,

then go straight into the F consonant

without releasing the P.

Flip phone, flip phone.

It's not 'flip phone', with a full release,

and it's not flihphone, with no stop of air.

We have to stop the air.

Flip phone, flip phone.

This way of linking ending stop consonants

to words that begin with another consonant

is a great trick to add to your English

if you haven’t already.

Some students have trouble with this,

and add an additional schwa sound between

words in order to link in these situations.

So 'hot sauce' becomes something more like

'hot-uh-sauce'.

So remember,

don't release that ending stop consonant,

just stop the air.

For all other cases,

you'll just need to isolate

the two sounds in question and practice.

Let's take for example 'It's a tough one'.

Here we're linking the F and W sounds.

Practice them separately, ff, ww, ff, ww.

Now practice them together,

sliding slowly from one sound to the other

ff-ww, ff-ww.

Really think about what you're moving

to transition in-between these two sounds.

In this case, my bottom lip was touching

the bottom of the top front teeth, ff,

and then the lips round out.

My tongue doesn't have to move.

Ff-ww, ff-ww,

tough one, tough one.

Tough one. It's a tough one.

So, isolate the sounds,

practice them separately,

practice them together slowly, speed them up

and put them back

into the context of the words

and eventually the sentence.

Let's look at one more example.

We'll link the N sound to the R sound:

On Rachel's desk.

Here, my lips and tongue have to move.

Nn, rr, nn, rr.

Now link them together slowly:

nn, rr.

You may see my lips are rounding

a little bit as I'm making the N,

that's in preparation for the R.

The tongue goes from having the top part

of the front of the tongue

at the roof of the mouth here, NN, to having

the front part of the tongue touching nothing.

As the tongue pulls back for the R

So for the R, the middle part of the tongue

is touching the roof of the mouth, or maybe

the insides of the teeth, about here.

Nn-rr. Onn-Rr, Onn-Rrachel's.

I'm really feeling the tongue move up

and then back,

on Rachel's, on Rachel's.

On Rachel's desk.

Check out the other videos that I've made,

that address some

consonant to consonant linking.

Take any short text and look for words

that should link consonant to consonant.

For each case,

think about what kind of linking it is.

Is the consonant the same?

Is the first consonant a stop consonant?

Practice it slowly.

Linking is a crucial part of smoothing out speech,

sounding American.

Put an example of a simple sentence

where you would need to link

consonant to consonant below in the comments.

Practice with the sentences

that everyone else puts!

That's it, and thanks so much for using

Rachel's English.