CONNECTED SPEECH

By understanding these features this will help with - Listening to native speakers - Own conversation skills

In natural conversation, you’ll hear that each is not spoken in a

stilted and overly formal manner

instead

Words flow together to make the speech sound fluent and natural.

When this happens, the

Way we pronounce the end and beginning of some can change depending on the sounds at the beginning and end of those words.

These changes are described as features of connected speech.

We’ll divide these differences into 4 sections:

1. Sounds linking 2. Sounds disappearing 3. Sounds joining together 4. Sounds changing.

Lets start with the linking Sounds

Linking is a way of joining the pronunciation of two words so that they are easy to say and flow together smoothly.

In English there are different ways that this happens

The first way this happens is possibly the

…most common sound in English and is called the SCHWA sound.

If you get this sound correct than this a really good way of making your pronunciation more accurate and natural.

So what is the SCHWA sound -Lets listen to this sound – “er”

So what is Schwa?

Any vowel letter can be pronounced as Schwa, and the pronunciation of a vowel letter can change depending on whether the in which it occurs is stressed or not.

So for example: The word man the ‘a’ has its full sound

Now say postman – the letter a now changes to the schwa sound

-listen again

MAN POSTMAN

So how does this work in connected speech?

A common feature is the way ‘and’ is spoken in connected speech.

Often this word is pronounced ‘n’ in phrases such as fish n chips

So we don’t say fish and chips we say fish n chips.

To is often pronounced ‘t’ in connected speech. So we will say:

“I’m going ‘t’ the shop” instead of

I’m going to the shop

Its quite contracted so we barely hear it – listen again

I’m going t the shop”

Another common form is OF

For example, listen to the phrase

“ A Cup Of Tea” – I’ll say it slowly first A Cup Of Tea and now at a more natural pace – A Cupvtea

What’s happening? Well,

When a word ending in a consonant sound is followed by a word beginning in a vowel sound we get a smooth transition from one to another Cup of becomes cupev –

A Cupvtea

Another example is ‘because of” becauseev

So let’s move on to more areas of Linking in connected speech:

Linking isn’t confined to the weak vowels, it can also happen with strong vowels as well.

Here’s an example:

“Don’t forget to switch of the light before you go out.”

When you listen to it, you may think that you’re hearing a word CHOFF.

Listen again

“Don’t forget to switch of the light before you go out”

Of course there’s no such word, and what your hearing is switch off linked together to get choff

Other examples of this is:

Fry Degg – instead of fried egg I Scream - instead of ice cream

Consonant to vowel linking is very common, but if we listen to that last sentence again

““Don’t forget to switch of the light before you go out.”

We can hear another form of linking:

“Don’t forget to switch of the light before you go out.”

Focus on the ‘go out’ part of the section. When a word ending in a vowel sound is followed by a word beginning in a vowel sound, we need to add another sound to make the transition between the words smooth.

So between the go and the out there is a linking sound of w (win) – go out, listen again

Go out goWout.

Another example of this W sound is found in Do IT “DowIT and

No Entry

So when a word ends in O or U we hear this W sound.

There is also a linking Y sound (yes) that can be heard in some transitions. For example – I am. Iyam

And ‘See It” - seeyit

When a word ends in I or ee or i we can hear Y sound

Don’t try to deliberately emphasize these linking sounds as you wont sound natural. This will come with practice and listening and speaking in your British accent.

The Linking R sound:

There is another type of linking which we’ll just take a quick look at now. And this is with linking ‘r’.

In Received Pronunciation, we don’t pronounce the final r in a word. Such as: car or there. However, if the next word begins with a vowel then we do pronounce the ‘r’ – e.g. ‘there is’

Lets listen to some examples:

We don’t pronounce the R when we say:

Door

Star

Four

But if the next word begins with a vowel then we say the R

Listen:

The car is here

Four eggs

Ok, we’re now going to move onto another part of connected speech called

Sounds Twinning (). This is what happens when there are 2 consonant sounds the same, One at the end of a word, one at the beginning of the next.

For example:

I’m a bit tired

We have a lot to do

Tell me what to say

She’s slept for three hours

I’ve finished

Listen to these again and we see what’s going on. Lets start with the first sentence

I’m a bit tired

– the word BIT ends with the letter T, and the word TIRED begins with the letter T.

When this happens we don’t pronounce them both – BIT TIRED ( hear the T sounds)

We don’t hear both the T’s we – we join the words and just hear the one T sound. “Bit tired”

Lets listen to those other sentences:

We have a lot to do – listen to lot & to

Tell me what to say – listen to what and to

She’s slept for three hours – listen to she’s & slept

I’ve finished – listen ve & finished

Its probably more important to be aware of this twinning aspect when you are listening to native speakers speak.

It will help you understand what is being said and to help you work out the grammar. However, it is less important to necessarily practice and deliberately try to do this in your own speech. The whole point of these techniques is to sound natural and fluent, and if you purposefully emphasize these linking strategies than your speech will sound unnatural and stilted.

As you develop your British accent you will naturally pick up and employ these techniques without really realising your doing it!

Another feature of connected speech is something called .

Let listen to a few examples and try to work out what it is:

I’m going next week

Worst That was the worst job I ever had! worst - worst job

Just Just one person came to the party! Just – just one

Can't I can't swim can't – can't swim

Can you hear what’s going on in those sentences (repeat the sentences)

When you have the sounds of /t/ or /d/ between 2 consonants sounds, they will often disappear completely from the pronunciation

So – I’m going nex(t) week

That was the wors(t) job I ever had

Jus(t) one person came to the party

I can’t swim

You can also hear this in individual words like

Postman when you say it at a usual pace you don’t hear the ‘t’

And

Westminster

You can slow down your speech to hear it – postman, Westminster. But at a usual spoken pace the t sound disappears

Changing Sounds.

Some words can also change.

Listen to these words:

Good ….. girl. She's a good girl. Good ….. girl - Good girl

So what’s happening here?

The sound at the end of the first word is taking on the quality of the sound at the beginning of the second. So the /d/ at the end of good, becomes like the /g/ at the start of girl. It doesn’t disappear, it actually sounds like a /g/. so it sounds like goog girl

This type of speech is called .

Here’s some other examples:

We can go now (gang go) We can buy it (cam buy)

4 different ways of hearing the word CAN

Can – strong form Cn - weak form Gang ( n sound starts to resemble the g of go Cam ( n sound before a b starts to resemble a m sound)

Other examples:

Green Park. I walked through Green Park. Green Park Green Park On Monday. He arrives on Monday. On Monday On Monday Fine by. It's fine by me! Fine by fine by

What’s happening?

In Green Park – the n sound at the end of green is followed by the p sound of park so the n sound starts to sound more like a m sound –so it sounds Greem Park

On Monday – n sound at end of on is followed by M sound of Monday, the N sound starts to change to M sound so sounds like om Monday.

Fine by- the n sound at the end of Fine is followed by b sound in by so the n sound starts to sound like a M –fime by

The reason for this feature of connected speech – it’s called assimilation, by the way,

...is to do with the place in the mouth where we make sounds. For example, when you say /b/ or /p/ you can feel that both your lips are pressed together. When you say /t/ or /d/ or /n/ you can feel that your tongue is touching above your top teeth, [on a place called the alveolar ridge]. When you say /k/ or /g/ or the ng sound at the end of words like 'going', you can feel the back of your tongue touching the roof of your mouth.

What happens is that the sounds pronounced on the alveolar ridge change so that they resemble sounds made in the other two places.

For example, in the phrase

‘we can go now’ the /n/ in ‘can’ sounds like ‘ng’ because of the influence of the following /g/ sound.

If we take the phrase ‘We can buy it’ the /n/ in ‘can’ sounds like a /m/ because of the influence of the following /b/

more than one feature of connected speech happens at the same time.

Let’s listen to some examples, first from a single word:

Handbag – I can’t find my handbag

So the first thing that happens here is the /d/ sound between two consonant sounds disappears, this now leaves the /n/ sound at the end of the first syllable, the next sound is /b/ and so the lips try to say /n/ while getting into the right shape to say /b/ and that turns it into an /m/ sound, so it sounds like ‘hambag’.

Lets look at an example from sentence when words collide:

Saint Paul’s –I'm going to visit Saint Paul's Cathedral today. Saint …. Paul's, Saint Paul's

What is happening here is that first of all we are pronouncing The word ‘saint’ in its weak form ‘st’. The /t/ sound then disappears because it has a consonant sound on either side. This puts /n/ next to /p/ so the /n/ changes to /m/ and it sound like ‘sempauls’.

Co-Alescent Assimilation;

There is another form of assimilation called co-alescent assimilation which is when both sounds change to form a third sound.

Some examples of this are:

Could you come tomorrow? Would you. Would you like some tea? Would you – would you Did you. Did you see it?. Did you did you

The d at the end of could, would and did and the Y at the beginning of You join together to make a third sound, so it sound like /dz/ (djew).

The features that we’ve covered in this module are really as a result of speaking quickly and fluently.

To understand this section will really help you when you are listening to native speakers in conversation. I t is not something that you need to study and practice yourself because it really is something that you will learn to do automatically as you become a more proficient speaker. It’s worth knowing about how these things work to help your listening comprehension and making native speakers easier to understand.

Thanks for listening.