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  • Welcome to Day 17.

  • When you hear native speakers talk fast,

  • do you think we often drop sounds?

  • Meaning we skip letters.

  • Well, we do. In fact, I just did it.

  • I did it with the word "often."

  • Which letter am I skipping?

  • English with Jennifer

  • "Often" could be said with or without the T:

  • Without the T is probably more common in American English,

  • especially in relaxed conversation

  • When else do we drop the T?

  • For that reason, you'll hear people say:

  • And you'll hear the T dropped between words, for example: just thinking.

  • Now in the case of "often," we did have a schwa sound in there,

  • but basically you have the F, T, and N sounds

  • and I think that's why we tend to drop the T and say "often."

  • It's also correct to use the T: /ˈɔf tən/

  • However, there are some words in which the T sound is always dropped:

  • ...are all examples.

  • Also, we often drop the T after an N, as in...

  • Look closely and you'll see the pattern.

  • It's N-T and then a following vowel sound.

  • And that vowel sound is unstressed, as in TWENty.

  • That's why it's also common to drop the T

  • in words that use the prefix "inter-." You'll hear:

  • But remember it's perfectly fine to say the T.

  • You can saytwɛn ti/.

  • You'll hear /ˈɪn tɚ ˌnɛt/.

  • But usually in relaxed speech, Americans drop the T.

  • You're probably familiar with these reduced forms.

  • Dunno instead of "don't know."

  • Wanna instead of "want to."

  • And gonna instead of "going to."

  • Just remember these are spoken forms, and they really shouldn't be written.

  • Let's do a quick check.

  • Will I drop any T in this sentence?

  • No.

  • Here's N-T plus a vowel,

  • but stress is on the second syllable.

  • So even in fast speech I'll keep the T.

  • How about this sentence?

  • We have N-T followed by an unstressed vowel sound,

  • so yes, I'll drop those Ts:

  • We also have a T as a middle consonant.

  • I could drop that, too:

  • Listen closely.

  • I'll say a sentence. You try to understand.

  • That's all for now.

  • Thanks for watching and happy studies.

Welcome to Day 17.

Subtitles and vocabulary

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