The Secret to Understand Fast-Speaking Natives: Connected Speech

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so today we're talking all about connected speech  so what is connected speech maybe you have heard  

this term before but if you haven't it's going  to really revolutionize your English so connected  

speech is how we natives cut and connect our words  together and really it's what gives English its  

musicality it's what gives it its flow and rhythm  and normally non-natives don't do this so what  

non-natives what English learners typically do is  they see a sentence and they think of it as every  

single individual word in that sentence now when  you speak like this it can sound really robotic it  

sounds really unnatural now what do natives do we  actually look at it more as units of words so like  

which of these words actually come together and  it makes a lot of sense once you start to focus  

on it but when you're new to it it can seem really  confusing but in fact this is so important because  

a lot of learners actually say that we natives  just speak so fast a large problem of it is not  

just that we speak fast but it's that this is  happening this connected speech is happening and  

your regular traditional classes haven't really  prepared you for it so when you encounter it it  

just seems like a jumble of words a jumble of  sounds and you really can't understand what  

natives are saying now connected speech  exists in every single accent of English  

but today I'm just going to focus on connected  speech in American English now I'm guessing  

you're probably wondering why exactly does this  happen why do natives do this and how can I know  

if different units of words are going to connect  to each other or if they're going to be separated  

now this comes down to a principle called content  and function words now we emphasize content words  

while we de-emphasize the function words so what  exactly are content and function words in case you  

haven't heard about this before so content words  really bring the meaning of the sentence they are  

the verbs the nouns the adjectives and really just  by looking at the content words usually we can  

understand most of what the person is trying  to communicate and then the function words are  

kind of what links everything together so this is  things like the articles the prepositions and the  

other kind of smaller words that help to kind of  give a little bit of extra meaning to the phrase  

so I'm not going to go too much into this  concept of content and function words here  

because we actually did a lesson on our Learn  English with tv channel that I highly recommend  

that you check out if you haven't yet because it's  a really fun way to learn about this concept with  

some of your favorite tv series but just to give  you a quick example so let's look at the sentence  

I am going to go to the store now that's probably  how you might hear an English teacher say it in a  

really slow way or how a learner might even say  this because it sounds kind of robotic it's not  

how you would actually hear a native say this now  how would a native say this a native would say I'm  

going to go to the store now that probably to you  sounded like just a really big jumble of sounds  

right it's just not very clear what exactly I  was saying if I hadn't said it slowly before  

now it probably wasn't so hard for you to hear  those content words like the verb go or the noun  

store but all those function words in the middle  probably if I hadn't said it slow before would be  

completely lost to you so let's take a look at how  this kind of breaks down so we have for example  

the helper verb m and that reduces and connects  to the I now this is actually a contraction  

which we see all the time so we say I'm instead  of I am and we also have going to now you probably  

have heard before that we reduce going to to  gonna then as I said we fully say go and store  

but then we reduce the words that go in the middle  to the now this is really common so we would say  

the or if it has a vowel before it dada so instead  of saying I am going to the store a native would  

say I'm going to go to the store now as I said  before if you don't do this if you don't reduce  

your function words then your speech could sound  kind of robotic and that's not necessarily a  

problem because people can still understand you  so really the most important part of learning  

connected speech like this is that you're able to  understand natives when we use it now if you want  

to sound more like a native then of course you  can practice this a lot and it will help you a  

lot to have more of a native accent like that but  as I said it's not a hundred percent necessary  

now something else that we'll see where  this is really common is with phrasal verbs  

so usually we have in a phrasal verb we have  of course a verb and one or two particles now  

the verb gets emphasized that's a content word but  the particles are function words so we reduce them  

so for example if I say come over i'd actually  connect that m to the next word so I say  

come over or how about run out of now a native  wouldn't say run out of a native would say  

run out of or run outta and we could also look at  another one catch up now that ch at the end again  

we'll connect to the particle up so it becomes  catch up catch up now this probably seems kind  

of confusing up till now but we're going to  actually look at some different principles of  

connected speech that happen all the time and just  by learning those they're going to help you a lot  

in being able to understand natives and to  start kind of tweaking your accent now you  

probably already have noticed in these function  words when they reduce that schwa sound is really  

common and if you don't know it that schwa is that  uh sound that's a vowel that is actually the most  

common sound in american English actually I  think in all accents of English but before we  

move on to those principles of connected speech  I wanted to tell you about a really fantastic way  

for you to learn connected speech and to really  make it a part of your own speaking and that is  

with our real life native immersion course now  with this course you will learn with real life  

native conversations and with our pdf power  lessons we actually break it down the entire  

transcript of every conversation and show you  every instance of connected speech and how you can  

start identifying this better plus you also will  learn about vocabulary grammar pronunciation and  

so much more so you can try that for free with our  power learning week and it's really simple just  

click up here or down description below to learn  more and sign up for that and we look forward to  

seeing you inside all right so now let's look  at some of those principles of connected speech  

that are going to help you a ton in being able to  understand natives when you watch tv series or you  

listen to the radio or music or anything else like  that so the first one maybe you've encountered  

before so I'm not going to go into it in too  much depth because we talked about it all the  

time over on our learn English with tv series channel  so definitely go check that out if you haven't yet  

but this happens in American English when we have  a t between two vowel sounds so we actually saw  

an example of this before when I said run out of  did you actually hear how I said that part out  

of now I didn't say out of I said outta now this  is how most americans will pronounce this that t  

sound in the middle actually morphs to kind of a  d sound now this is very similar to the r sound  

in latin languages like spanish and portuguese  so it's just a very quick flick of the tongue  

at the top of the mouth so I didn't say outta I  said outta and you can hear this in other words like  

butter or cat and dog would become cat  and dog so this happens even between words  

so the next thing we're going to look at that  happens all the time in native speech is what  

happens to pronouns so pronouns that begin with  an h like he his or her we will often drop that h  

sound and connect it to the preceding word so for  example if I say what did he do I would actually  

drop that h sound in he and connect it to did so I  wouldn't say what did he do i'd say what did he do  

now you could completely miss the he there  probably if you're not accustomed to this  

and you wouldn't even be sure of like who are  we talking about let's look at a couple more  

examples so we could say for example he doesn't  know her so did you see I drop the h sound and  

I connected that w from no to her so he doesn't  know her nowhere we could also say that with his  

that what is his problem for example so I would  say what is this problem so we have the american  

t there happening because the t falls between wha  and is so it becomes what is what is and then the  

s or actually that z sound from is connects to the  pronoun so what is his problem what is his problem  

and this also happens with the pronoun them we  will drop that th sound and we're just left with  

um so instead of saying I will call them I would  say i'll call them i'll column or similar to the  

example we looked at before instead of saying  I don't know them I would say I don't know them  

I don't know them so moving on another thing that  we americans often reduce is when we have an n  

followed by a t so what happens in these cases is  that we'll actually drop the t sound many times  

so this can happen for example in the middle  of words so let's take the word internet  

and international what do you think happens here  so instead of saying internet or international I  

would say internet international but this doesn't  just happen in the middle of words it can also  

happen when we have a word ending in empty and the  next word begins with a vowel and you would have  

to have a content word and a function word here  so for example the kind of common preposition if  

we say that something is in front of something  else we would say in front of in front of let  

me give you another example so if I say I went  out I would actually say I went out and another  

expression that you might hear in american English  is we say I can't even now we say this for example  

when we just can't believe something that  happened so we wouldn't say I can't even  

we'd say I can't even and then finally with nt you  probably already know that when we have the word  

not we contract it often with the verb so for  example we say does not doesn't and has not hasn't  

but we don't actually say doesn't or hasn't we say  doesn't hasn't so we drop that t sound once again  

so next we're going to look at the sound of  now we have this both in the preposition of  

and we also have it when the verb have is part  of a contraction so let's take a look first at  

the preposition of so this will reduce simply to  an uh sound that's the schwa sound once again so  

for example if I say the queen of england I would  reduce that to the queen of england we have a  

popular breakfast in the us that's called cream of  wheat but an american probably would say cream of  

wheat or if for example I want to say I understand  your point of view I wouldn't say point of view I  

would say point of view now actually there that's  interesting too because we have that nt that we  

saw before so it becomes point of view not point  of view or point to view but point of view now  

as I mentioned the same exact thing happens with  have when we reduce it and add it to a contraction  

so instead of us saying could have would have  or might have will reduce that simply to the  

schwa sound again so I would say coulda woulda  or maida now did you hear that american t in  

might now when I just say the word might I  say true tea but because it's might have and  

we reduce that again it becomes mai da so that's  that american tea once again okay so next we have  

reductions with y now this is really common  because the word u is often a function word  

so we will actually have some sound morphing  here now this happens in two cases with two  

consonants the first one is when we have  a t plus a y now this becomes a ch sound  

and the same thing happens when we have d  plus y but instead of it being it becomes  

a j sound so it's j now I'm not going to give  you too many examples here or anything because  

I recently explained this in another lesson  where we talked about school English what they  

taught you at school versus real life English so  I highly recommend you check out that lesson next  

fantastic so we only have two more and the next  one that we're going to look at is something  

really funny that happens when we have two  consonants together so what I mean by this is  

when we have a word that ends in the consonant and  the next word begins with the same exact consonant  

so let's look at some examples of this to make it  clearer so for example if I say that a store has  

cheap prices now I wouldn't say both of those  p's because that's kind of difficult for me to  

pronounce in my mouth so this actually makes your  speaking a little bit easier because you don't  

want to get all tripped up by that you can just  drop one of those p sounds so a native instead of  

saying cheap prices would say cheap prices so we  drop that first p and then we link them together  

cheap prices so let's look at some more examples  of this how about a place that you would go if  

you have a car the gas station becomes the gas  station so gas station and maybe you like reading  

so you would join a book club but a native one  and say a book club because that's really tricky  

for our mouths again we'd say book club book club  and then finally i've given you all examples of  

consonants but this also happens with vowels  so if for example I want to say we each have  

a fantastic time learning English I wouldn't say  we each i'd say which we each have a great time  

we each have a great time so we're going to  look at something else now the final principle  

also has to do with when we have a vowel  sound and that is the vowel u because we get  

a really strange sound morphing there so when  a word ends in a u sound and I don't just mean  

the letter u I mean the sound u so that's that oo  sound we will actually often transform it to a w  

if the following letter the beginning letter of  the next word is a vowel as well so for example  

if I want to say who is it say I have someone just  knocked in the door and I want to say who is it  

I wouldn't say who is it I would say who is it so  did you hear what happened there listen again who  

is it now what happens when we have a u sound  followed by another vowel is it becomes a  

w sound so who is it that's a very strange  sound morphing I know but it happens all  

the time in native speech and as I said you  notice that there who ends in an o but it's an  

ooh sound so say you want to give a friend a  compliment and you want to say you are the best  

that's a really great alternative to saying thank  you but you want to say you are the best you'd say  

you are the best you are the best and you could  also say you always do that maybe someone does  

something that really annoys you so you  say you always do that that w sound again  

all right so I hope this has given you a little  bit of clarity I hope you've taken notes and it's  

really important that you start actually paying  attention to this in anything that you watch  

or listen to now something really great that  you can do is when you're watching something  

either with subtitles or without you can actually  check yourself if you didn't understand something  

go back and listen again and this is where the  subtitles come in handy because say you watched  

it first without subtitles you didn't understand  something you go back you watch again with  

subtitles what I want you to do when this happens  is actually try to figure out what didn't I  

understand here and why was that now was that due  to some connected speech and you can actually take  

a look at some of the principles that we looked  at today and try to figure out what exactly was  

happening here was there some sound morphing was a  function word here reduced now if you start doing  

this you're just going to see huge improvements in  your ability to understand your favorite tv series  

music the radio podcasts and so much more and  another thing that can be really helpful here is  

if you have a teacher or the guidance of a native  so one way that you can do this of course is by  

getting a really fantastic coach or teacher and  make sure that it's someone who knows a little bit  

about how natives actually pronounce things and  that they can kind of coach you in this connected  

speech whether you're wanting to actually speak  that way or just be able to understand it and  

another great way to do this as I said is with our  real life native immersion course because I and  

justin and another teacher chad will actually be  the ones that are guiding you through the journey  

of learning English so I hope you've had a lot of  fun today thanks so much for joining me and i'll  

see you next week now it's time to go beyond the  classroom and live your English ah yeah so let's  

look at some instances of this that you will find  all the time so in school they probably taught  

you to say these like serious sam let's see got  to want to have to going to however it's pretty  

uncommon that you will hear natives speak this way  most natives will actually speak like my friend  

street stan yeah man i'd say like gotta wanna  gonna so maybe you already know about those ones