How To Understand Fast English
Why is it so difficult to understand fast English in conversation and when you are watching movies?
This free DailyStep English listening lesson will help you to understand English more easily and also speak English that sounds more natural.
You will learn to understand how English words connect together, and this will help you to understand fast English in movies, radio shows and podcasts.
Understanding Fast English
by Jane Lawson at DailyStep.com
When you listen to English, what do you hear? Do you hear each word clearly and have time to understand it? Or do you hear one long sound and find it hard to distinguish one word from the next? The fact is that when English or any other language is spoken, the words are joined together.
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Listen to these phrases. I will say each phrase twice. The first time, I will separate the words (just how you prefer to hear them!), and the second time I will connect them, as we do in natural speech. Then take a look at how we pronounce the words.
| Spelling. | .Pronunciation. | …Phonemic Script.... |
|
one egg |
wuneg |
wʌn’eg |
|
two eggs |
toowegz |
tʊ:’wegz |
|
three eggs |
threeyeggz |
θrɪ:’jegz |
|
four eggs |
foregz |
fɔ:’regz |
|
five eggs |
fivegz |
fɑi’vegz |
|
six eggs |
siksegz |
sik’segz |
|
seven eggs |
sevenegz |
‘seven’egz |
.
So what did you notice about how these phrases are pronounced? In the Pronunciation column, you can see that, in some phrases, the last sound of the first word is actually joined more strongly to the second word, for example in the phrases ‘one egg’ (wuneg) and ‘five eggs’ (fivegz).
So, an English learner might wonder what the words ‘neg’ or ‘vegz’ mean, when in fact these words do not even exist!
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The red letters represent sounds that are not even there if we say the words separately. We put these extra sounds into English when we are speaking so that the words can be spoken more quickly and easily. These extra sounds are made naturally when we are moving our mouths from one position to another.
If you speak quickly and try saying ‘two eggs’ without the extra W sound, ‘three eggs’ without the extra Y sound, or ‘four eggs’ without the extra R sound, you’ll find that it is hard to say that way.
This whole topic, in the study of English pronunciation, is called Word Linking. I will teach you more details about the rules of word linking over the next couple of months. Try to use word linking yourself when you are speaking English, and you will suddenly find that you can not only speak more natural sounding English but also understand other people’s English a whole lot better!
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How to speak English fluently and understand fast English
DailyStep English Audio Lessons are designed to help you learn to speak and understand English at the speed that we speak it.
No matter how good your English is, you need to be able to follow a fast conversation in order to participate.
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