Name: The Secret to Understand Fast-Speaking Natives: Connected Speech
Uploaded: 2022-02-17T08:55:41.000Z
Duration: 18 min 14 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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Hey guys what's going on! So in today's lesson  I'm going to tell you the secret to being able  

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to understand and even speak more like a native  but before we get into today's lesson I want to  

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let you know that if you're new here every single  week we guide you beyond the classroom so that you  

can understand fast speaking natives communicate  confidently with anyone and connect to the world  

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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  

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The Secret to Understand Fast-Speaking Natives: Connected Speech

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