Sound More Fluent with One Easy Tip—Speak Confident English

Hey,

it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English and this week we're going to focus

on a topic that I love teaching my students because like them,

maybe you listen to native speakers and think, oh my gosh,

they talk so fast, I can't understand what they're saying.

And sometimes you might also think, why can't I talk like native speakers?

I want to sound like them.

And today I'm going to teach you one little thing that will help you do that.

When you know this one thing,

you'll begin to recognize it when you listen to native speakers and you'll start

to understand them more easily and you can use it so that you sound faster when

you communicate in English and sound more natural as well.

So what is this one thing related to pronunciation that will make understanding

native speakers easier and help you to speak faster and English?

It's connected speech. Today, in this video,

I'm going to talk about what connected speech is and give you some examples so

that you can practice this and begin to use it in your English and you'll start

to recognize it when you listen to native speakers as well.

Connected speech is the blending of sounds between words.

And as a result,

we join many words instead of saying them separately and clearly,

if you listen to native speakers,

they don't talk like this with every word pronounced.

Clearly. We don't do that in English.

Some languages do and it's perfectly normal. But in English,

we don't pronounce every word equally and clearly it sounds robotic in English,

and we definitely don't want to do that. Instead,

we blend sounds between words. Here's an example.

If you listen to native speakers talking about what they are going to do in the

future, they don't say,

I'm going to go to the store. They say, I'm gonna go,

I'm gonna go to the store. In that example,

we're blending the sounds between going to,

I'm going to go becomes I'm gonna,

next time you're talking to a native speaker. Listen for that example.

We use it all the time and you can use it as well to sound like you're

communicating faster in English and more naturally.

Here's another super common example. Instead of saying,

I want to, for example,

I want to go to a restaurant for dinner.

We blend the sounds between w ant and to and we say wanna.

I wanna to go to a restaurant for dinner.

The truth is saying that t sound /t/ close together is really hard.

Want to, it's so much work.

So instead of doing that hard work with the pronunciation,

we blend it and say wanna. I wanna go to the store.

I wanna go to a restaurant for dinner. I wanna watch a movie this weekend.

Go ahead and try it for yourself. Pause this video if you want.

Practice saying that out loud and then create a sentence where you blend those

sounds together.

Now in those examples were blending those sounds and as a result there are

sounds we don't use, for example, want to,

we're removing that t sound and we're using another sound in English.

That is really common and important to know the schwa sound.

The schwa is a really lazy and easy sound to make.

This is what it sounds like. uh, uh,

uh. Do you notice I don't have to work really hard to make that sound.

So it's easy for us to use when we're blending all these words and you hear it

in gonna, uh, gonna wanna, uh,

as you'll notice with connected speech,

we often use that schwa sound when we're blending sounds together.

So let's look at a few more really common examples of connected speech that

native speakers use all the time so that you can practice them and begin to use

them as well. The third example is, I don't know,

what do you think?

Do you know how you might blend those words with don't and know together?

Have you ever heard a native speaker do it? Don't know becomes dunno.

I dunno. Dunno,

do you notice which sounds we've dropped?

And can you find the schwa and that sound? Duh no Duh.

Uh,

Dunno we've dropped the on't in don't and replaced it with the schwa and blended

it with know, dunno. Example number four is what do you,

for example, what do you think or what do you want?

How would you blend those words together? What do you,

instead of saying those three words separately with what do you,

we connect them and say, whaduh'ya.

Whaduh'ya, whaduh'ya think?

Whaduh'ya want?

Whaduh'ya. Now, once again, can you find that lazy sound,

the schwa? whaduh'ya,

whad-uh'ya, whaduh'ya.

Instead of clearly pronouncing the t in what and the d in do we combine them

into one sound whad and then we add the schwa whad-uh,

whaduh'ya. Whaduh'ya.

I want you to pause this video for a moment and try saying that so that you can

get some practice, try it two or three times.

It might sound a little funny or strange.

It might even feel weird the first few times you do it and that's okay.

You're learning something new and it takes a little bit of practice. All right,

now that you've done that,

let's look at what it sounds like when we put some of these together.

For example, what do you want to do?

So we've got two examples there. What do you and want to,

what do you want to do? Sounds like,

whaduh'ya wanna do?

Whaduh'ya wanna do? Whaduh'ya wanna do.

Now to finish this lesson on connected speech,

let's look at one more combination that's really common.

Often native speakers,

will avoid that /t/ sound when it's combined with you.

For example, meet you, won't you,

shouldn't you, wouldn't you? In all of those examples,

we have a word that finishes with the /t/ sound and it's combined with you.

So instead of saying those words separately and clearly we connect them and the

combination sounds like choo for example,

meet you. Sounds like mechoo.

It's nice to mechoo.

Don't you sounds like donchoo,

donchoo? Donchoo wanna to see a movie this weekend?

Can't you is canchoo?

Canchoo ask your boss for a day off?

Won't you becomes wonchoo. And how about shouldn't to you?

What do you think?

Shouldenchoo, shouldenchoo. Shouldenchoo take a break?

And with that you've got several examples of connected speech that native

speakers use every day. Again,

we never say each word separately.

We combine sounds and connect words.

That is what native speakers do that make them sound like they're talking

quickly and it's exactly what you can do to sound faster and English as well.

Now, if you found today's lesson helpful to you and enjoyed it,

please be sure to let me know and here are three really great ways that you can

do that. Number one,

give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to this channel so you

don't miss any future lessons. Number two,

if you have a friend or a colleague who could really use some help with

pronunciation in English and they want to be able to sound faster,

share this with them and you can do that by email or share on Facebook and

finally be sure to share your comments and questions with me.

You can do that in the comment section at the end of the lesson.

Now for today's challenge question,

I want to know what other examples of connected speech have you heard before?

Are there words that you already know to combine and you use them in your

everyday speech. If you've got other examples,

please be sure to share those with me and everyone else in the Confident English

Community.

You can share your additional examples in the comment section just below the

video.

Thank you so much for joining me this week and I look forward to seeing you next

time for your Confident English lesson.