Video 1 - an introduction to connected speech -part 1 sound linking.
Author Archives: Helen Cunningham
Introduction to connected speech – Part 1
This is lesson one in a 4 part series on understanding spoken English. Lesson 2 will be emailed to you in a few days time.
Friday night – listening to contractions.
This listening exercise contains lots of contractions. Contractions are often difficult to hear. You can download the sound file and listen multiple times.
We’re listening to contractions in Spoken English
When you listen to spoken informal English you will hear that we use contractions all the time in informal conversations. You're, we're, they're. Can you recognise these contractions when you hear them? You are, we are, they are. These are rarely pronounced in this full form and are usually contracted. This often makes them hard to hear in spoken English as when contracted they sound very similar to other English words.
Connected speech Listening exercise. Birthday plans.
We have looked at the elision of T sounds in consonant clusters, the glottal stop T and disappearing G at the end of ...ing in many regional accents, and also the linking R sound in connected speech. New Listening Exercise to put it all into practice....
Understanding Connected Speech – a video introduction.
Video lesson on understanding connected speech.
Connected speech and linking R – listening exercise.
In spoken English, we don't have big spaces between the words. We blend sounds together to move from one word to another quickly. This allows us to keep to the rhythm of English sentence stress. This linking of words happens most often when one word ends in a consonant and the next starts with a vowel and we connect these words together.
Listening practice – elision of t – the glottal stop.
The glottal stop An important feature of informal spoken English is the glottal stop. This happens when we tighten our throat and stop the air getting out. This means the / t / sound at the end of words is not pronounced.
Listening Exercise – natural speech
A Valentine’s Day Surprise - part 2 The story continues...It’s two days after Valentine’s Day, you are waiting on the train station platform on your way home from work and the woman standing next to you is making a phone call. Listening exercise with the transcript.
Listening exercise -elision of /t/
It's Valentine's Day, you are on the train on your way home from work and the women sitting opposite you is making a phone call. Can you work out what the phone call is about? You can only hear one-side of the phone call and there is background noise of the train as well.