In natural English speech, words may connect to one another or sounds may disappear. If you do not know about these "sound changes," you may not understand even words you know. This lesson organizes the main types of sound changes.
Basic Rules
① Linking: The consonant at the end of one word connects with the vowel at the beginning of the next word.
- "an apple" → sounds like "anapple"
- "turn off" → sounds like "turnoff"
② Elision: When consonants occur consecutively, a sound in the middle is not pronounced.
- "next day" → the /t/ is omitted, sounding like "nex day"
- "must be" → the /t/ is weakened, sounding like "mus be"
③ Weak forms: Grammatical function words (prepositions, articles, and auxiliary verbs) are not pronounced strongly and become reduced vowels.
- "for" → usually is not pronounced strongly and becomes short, like "fər"
- "and" → may become only "ən" / "n"
④ Assimilation: Neighboring sounds influence each other and change into different sounds.
- "did you" → in casual speech, sounds close to "didja"
Listening strategies:
- Content words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) are pronounced strongly, so concentrate on them
- Function words (prepositions and articles) take weak forms, so use your grammar knowledge to infer that something should be there
What are you doing?→ In natural speech, it sounds like "whaddaya doin'" (What are→whaddaya, you→ya, doing→doin').
I have to go.→ have to becomes one word and sounds like "hafta."
Points to Note
① Simply knowing sound changes as knowledge can greatly improve listening accuracy. When you know a word from its written form but cannot understand it when listening, the cause is often a lack of knowledge about sound changes.
② Do not try to hear every sound one by one. Use stressed content words as the foundation and reconstruct the meaning of the entire sentence.
③ For function words that take weak forms (a / the / to / of / for), predict from grammar that they should be present. If you can predict them, the meaning will still be clear even if you do not hear them.
④ The most effective way to internalize sound-change patterns is through reading aloud and shadowing. Do not only read and understand them; pronouncing them yourself improves listening accuracy.
- Linking: a consonant＋vowel connects (an apple → anapple)
- Elision: a sound disappears when consonants occur consecutively (the /t/ in next day)
- Weak forms: function words are pronounced weakly with reduced vowels (for, and, to)
- Concentrate on content words and use grammar knowledge to fill in function words
Practice
- How does "turn off" sound through linking?
- Which sound is omitted in "must be"?
- Explain in Japanese why the meaning can be understood even if function words (prepositions and articles) are not heard.