Language /ˈlaŋɡwɪdʒ/

The method of human communication, either spoken or written.

4 skills of language are:
1. Listening > 2. Speaking, 3. Reading > 4. Writing

Pronunciation /prəˌnʌnsɪˈeɪʃ (ə) n/

The way in which a word is pronounced.

"Spelling does not determine pronunciation"

1. Connected Speech
2. Intonation

Intonation : TUM kya kar rahy ho. tum KYA kar rahy ho.

Understand the Musical quality of English language. Intonation

is the MELODY of our speech. English is a stress-timed
language. What does that mean?

WHAT does that MEAN? STRESSED sounds take a bit longer

to say. And they happen on a regular beat.

All the unstressed sounds are shorter and they happen off
beat.

So these longer and shorter sounds create a RHYTHM.

Two types of stress;

RHYTHM= 1. Syllable stress in word 2. Words stress in

sentences
English words with 2 or more syllables: stressed and
unstressed sounds.

Stressed sounds: louder, longer, at a higher pitch

e.g.

ENlish, comMUniCAtion

English Sentences: English sentences have stressed and

unstressed words.

We stress content words. Words that carry meanings. Our

content words fall on the beat.

Noun, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives, interjections, WH

words, and negatives.

e.g. I HAVE to GO to SCHOOL. It’s NOT the BEST iDEa.

I WANT my BROther to WIN.

Function words like prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns,

helping verbs and articles are normally unstressed. We say
them more softly and generally faster and sometimes
disappear. Function words are off beat.

e.g. function words are underlined

I HAVE to GO to SCHOOL. It’s NOT the BEST iDEa. I WANT

my BROther to WIN.
We can understand message without function words.

HAVE GO SCHOOL

NOT BEST iDEa

WANT BROther WIN

Function words almost become part of content words in

rhythm.

e.g.

she WANTS to PLAY a GAME.

sheWANTS toPLAY aGAME.

I’d LIKE you to JOIN US for DINNER.

I’d LIKE youtoJOINUS forDINNER.

We’ll CHOOSE the WINNER on SATURDAY or SUNDAY.

We’ll CHOOSE theWINNER onSATURDAY orSUNDAY.

Features of connected speech

Fluent speakers of English speak very fast- 350-450 words

per minute. It is not necessary to articulate that fast until
you are ready. However, it is important to be able to
understand the flow of speech and the features of connected
speech that facilitate rapid articulation.

We can divide these features into 3 areas:

LINKING, OMISSION, MODIFICATION

LINKING OMISSION MODIFICATION

a) Catenation a. Elision: vowels a. contraction
b) Linking /r/ b. Elision: b. assimilation :
c) Intrusion consonants progressive,
/w/,/r/,/j/ regressive,
coalescent
c. reduction/weak
forms
1. LINKING

a) Catenation ‫ زنجیر بنانا‬/ ‫تسلسل‬

Consonant+Vowel
1st word last C links with 2nd wors 1st V
This is when the last consonant of the first word is
joined to the first vowel of the next word. This is very
very common in English, and can be very confusing for
students. For example:

‘an apple’ sounds like ‘a napple’

I want that orange –> thadorange

This afternoon –> thisafternoon

Is he busy? –> Isi busy?

Cats or dogs? –> Catserdogs?

b. Linking /r/

RP/BBC is non-rhotic. Therefore, in words such as sister,

hear, car, etc. r is not pronounced. However, if the words
ending in /r/ are followed by words beginning with vowel
sounds, the /r/ is restored.

e.g. Doctor Adams, sister and brother, hear it

Her English is excellent. (/r/ is pronounced)

Her German is absolutely awful. (/r/ is not pronounced)

My brother lives in London. (/r/ is not pronounced)

My brother always phones at the wrong time. (/r/ is

pronounced)

c. Intrusion /w/, /r/, /j/

This occurs when one word end in a vowel and the next begin
with one. The intrusive sound depends on the vowel at the end
of the first word:

Final sound of the Intrusive sound example

first word
/ə/ /ɑ:/ /r/ China /r/ isn’t
small
/ʊ/ /u:/ /aʊ/ /əʊ/ /w/ Blue /w/ eyes
/ɪ/ /i:/ /eɪ/ /aɪ/ /j/ Free /j/ and easy

PRACTICE:
Try saying the following phrases

Saw and ran

My uncle

Far away

Go away

What do you notice?

Look at the following groups of phrases and be prepared to

explain what type of linking occurs

Her English

Car engine

Mother and baby

America and Canada

Law and order

You are

Go off

Sue always wants to eat

He is
They are

She always takes my arm

Look at the following sentence and identify where you would

expect to find linking:

You are obviously unhappy about the idea of it.

In fluent speech, we don’t say the words separately, like
robots.

In fluent speech, words bump into each other.

Speed and rhythm => changes in pronunciation of words.

“Life is like a box of chocolates.”

/li feis likea boxo choclates/

This is called:

CONNECTED SPEECH

FEATURES OF CONNECTED SPEECH

1. LINKING
2. ASSIMILATION
3. ELISION
4. REDUCTION
 1. LIKING
In many cases, words are pronounced as if they were
joined together.

POSSIBLE CASES:
C= CONSONANTS, V= VOWELS
-….C] + [V …
-….V] + [V …
-….C] + [C …

C SOUND} + {V SOUND

The final C ‘jumps’ forward and is pronounced with the V of

the beginning of the next word, as if they formed one syllable.

e.g. an apple > [a-napple]

not at all > [no-ta-tall]

in british English, ‘r’s are not pronounced in final position. But

if there is an actual final ‘r’ spelt + a V sound. We do
pronounce the ‘r’.

this is called “linking ‘R”.

e,g. BUTTER AND JAM

V sound] + [V sound

When two V meet, we introduce a sound to make the

transition easier from one word to the other: ‘intrusive’ sound
[r, w, j]

/r/

e.g. the idea of inviting him. /idea-r-of/

I saw film yesterday. /saw-r-a/

/w/

I’ll go out in a minute. /Go-w-out/

/j/

I am in the office. /i-j-am/

C sound] + [same C sound

Two same C sounds, pronounced like a long consonant sound.

It sounds as if the first C was not released but the second

one was,

e.g. nice summer /ss/

Some money /mm/

 2. ASSIMILATION
Sometimes, a consonant sound at the beginning or end
of a word is influenced by another next to it.

3 types of assimilation
-Regressive / …C/ <- /C … /
-Progressive / …C/ <- /C … /
-Coalescence / …C/ <- /C … /
(in both direction)

Regressive assimilation
-Backwards
-Initial C affects final C of the previous word.

e.g. this shop > [this shop] > [thishop]

eight cakes > [eighk kakes]
ten pens > [tem pens]

Progressive assimilation

-Forward

-Final C influences the initial C of the next word/syllable.

PLURAL e.g. dogs > [dogz]

PAST –ED kissed > [kist]

Coalescence Assimilation

- Bi-direction
- Final C + initial C influence each other – NEW sound
/-s, -z, -t, -ts, -d, -dz/ + /j/ -> palatal sounds / ʃ, ʒ, tʃ,
dʒ/
e.g.
did you, / dʒ /
this year, / ʒ /
wat y ou… / tʃ /

3. Elision
-A sound disappears in string of several consonant
sounds.
- To make articulation easier and keep speech flow
consonant.

e.g.
next week > [nex week]
would have > [would ave]
asked > [askt] > [ast]

4. Reduction
-English is a stress-timed language
(vs syllable are stressed.)
-Not all syllable are stressed.
-About the same time between stresses in a sentence.
-To fit all syllables between stresses,
Some are reduced in pronunciation (weaker
pronunciation).
-Function words: auxiliary verbs, pronouns,
prepositions, etc.
-In fluent speech, instead of usual pronunciation
(strong form),
We have the weak form.
-The vowel sound of these words becomes a reduced
neutral sound the
Schwa /ǝ/
.e.g.
I can fly. [cǝn]
The man over there. [thǝ]
When will you be arriving? [wǝl yǝ]

QUIZ
1. I booked a room. > bookta (linking)

2. It’s been cancelled. (assimilation)

3. He was left back. > lefbak (elision)

4. Last year > lasjear (assimilation coalescence)

 5. You and me > yowend
(reduction end) (linking w> yowǝ)

5 Features of Connected Speech

 Last updated 3 July 2018

 11 comments
In spoken discourse the boundaries between words are very
often not clear-cut. Words and sounds are lost and linked
together in different ways to enable us to articulate with
minimal movement.

This is one of the reasons learners find spoken discourse more

difficult to understand than written discourse. At higher
levels it is often not a lack of vocabulary which prevents
understanding, but lack of ability to deal with these features
of connected speech. Native speakers are more able to
use top-down processing to decide whether what they have
heard is red dye or red eye.
Here are some of the more common features of connected
speech:

1. Assimilation
Assimilation occurs when a phoneme (sound) in one word
causes a change in a sound in a neighbouring word. For
example, try saying the following pairs of words:

 in Bath
 last year

 Hyde Park

You’ll notice that the last sound of the first word changes
in each case. The /n / sound
becomes /m/ , /t/ becomes /t ʃ/ and /d/ becomes /b/.

2. Elision
Elision is the loss of a phoneme, most commonly the last
phoneme of a word, and most commonly
the /t/ and /d/ sounds. Have a look at these examples:
 left back

 stand by

 looked back

 I must go

In each case the last phoneme of the first word is elided

(lost). In the most simple terms, the reason is that the
time and effort required to change the mouth position
 from the /t/ to the /b/ sound (as in the first example)
or the /t/ to the /g / sound (as in the last example) is too
great!

3. Delayed plosion
Our “red dye” and “red eye” is an example of this. To
articulate “red dye”, we must take a very short pause
before the /d/ sound. The /d/ is an example of a plosive,
consonant sounds where the vocal tract stops all airflow.
Other examples are /b/,/d/, /g /, /p/, /t/ and /k/. This
pause before the plosive gives us the name of this
feature, delayed plosion.
Another example: the right tie (delay) – the right eye (no
delay)

4. Catenation
In catenation the last consonant of the first word is
joined to the vowel sound at the start of the second word.
For example:

 pick it up – (learners will hear something like pi ki tup)

 what is it – (learners will hear something like wo ti zit)

5. Intrusion ‫مداخلت کاری‬

 Intrusion is what you might expect from the name – an
extra sound “intrudes” into the spoken utterance. Try
saying the following pairs of words:

 media event
 I always

 go away

Do you hear the /r/ sound intruding after “media”,

the /j / sound intruding after “I” and the /w/ sound
intruding after “go”?
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5 Connected Speech Secrets for Fast, Native English

Pronunciation
WHAT IS CONNECTED SPEECH?
Learn how connected speech will help you to speak English
faster, more fluently, and much more like a native speaker.
Unfortunately, many language learners don’t know about this
subject, but we should! First of all, let’s make sure we have a
basic understanding. What is connected speech?

Connected speech means that when we speak a language,

words have some effect on each other. We do not always
pronounce words completely separately with a neat pause in
between. In fact, many words affect each other when you put
them into phrases and sentences. The end sound of one word
often affects the beginning of the next word.

CONNECTED SPEECH INCLUDES MANY SUB-TOPICS

There are many different ways that connected speech
happens. Sometimes sounds are added, or omitted, or
changed, in different ways. It is actually a big subject and we
could spend a long time talking about the several sub-topics in
it!

In this lesson, you’ll learn a bit about five different kinds of

connected speech: catenation or linking, intrusion, elision,
assimilation and geminates.

CATENATION ‫تسلسل‬ OR LINKING

Catenation, or Linking is probably what most people think of
first when they think of connected speech. Linking happens
when the end of one word blends into another. When the last
sound of a word is a consonant and the first sound of the next
word is a vowel, you get linking.

For example:
I want this orange –> thisorange

I want that orange –> thadorange

This afternoon –> thisafternoon

Is he busy? –> Isi busy?

Cats or dogs? –> Catserdogs?

INTRUSION
Intrusion means an additional sound “intrudes” or inserts
itself between others. It is often is a /j/ or /w/ or /r/ sound
between two other vowel sounds.

For example:

He asked –> Heyasked

She answered –? Sheyanswered

Do it –> Dewit

Go out –> Gowout

Shoe on –> Shoewon

ELISION
Elision means when a sound disappears. Basically, a sound is
eaten by other stronger or similar sounds next to it. This
often happens with a /t/ or /d/ sound.
For example:

Next door –> Nexdoor

Dad take –> Datake

Most common –> Moscommon

ASSIMILATION ‫ مشابہت‬،‫یکساں کرنا‬

Assimilation means two sounds blend together, forming a new

sound altogether. This often happens with /t/ and /j/ which
make /ʧ/ and with /d/ and /j/ which make /ʤ /.
For example:

Don’t you — donʧu

Won’t you — wonʧu

Meet you — meeʧu

Did you — diʤu

Would you — wuʤu
GEMINATES
Finally, geminates are like twins — two same sounds back-to-
back. Often when one word ends with the same letter as the
beginning of the next word, you should connect the two words
in your speech.

For example:

Social life –> socialife

Pet turtle –> Peturtle

These five points and examples may make you feel like you
have a lot to study!

Try learning the International Phonetic Alphabet so that you

can take notes about how words sound together. Or, you could
keep an audio journal on your smart phone where you record
how words and phrases sound with connected speech.

Here is a cool tool you can try making English sentences into
IPA. Keep in mind that sometimes real life pronunciation will
be different because of variations.
If you liked this lesson, you’ll love my lesson about
pronunciation and the “schwa” sound. Click here to view it
now.
And click on our video lesson below if you’d like to hear more
about connected speech!
Helping students with connected speech
There is a huge difference between what our students see
printed on a page and what we actually say in everyday speech.

In a recording of a TESOL Spain Presentation on

Youtube (well worth watching), Mark Hancock makes the
following joke:
Patient: Doctor, Doctor, I’ve got two theik, a near rake, sore
rise, bruise darms a stummer cake and I far tall the time.

Doctor: I see, perhaps you’d like to way tin the corridor?

(Try reading it aloud)

The joke [apologies for the vulgarity ] showcases a good

number of examples of features of connected speech.
Teacher can tend to shy away from highlighting these in the
classroom, but research shows that teaching learners about
connected speech can really make a difference in terms of
how well they understand native speakers. See for
example, Authentic Communication: whyzit important ta teach
reduced forms (Brown 2006) . Equally, some ability to use
these features in their own speech will also be likely to make
students more confident and fluent speakers.
Features of connected speech
As a brief overview, there is a strong tendency in English to
simplify and link words together in the stream of speech, in
order to help the language flow rhythmically. Some of the
most common features:

Assimilation
This is when the sound at the end of one word changes to
make it easier to say the next word. For example:

‘ten boys’ sounds like ‘ tem boys’ (the /n/ sound changes to the
bilabial /m/ to make it easier to transition to the also bilabial
/b/)

Incidentally bilabial just means two lips together, which is a

good example of the kind of jargon that puts people off!

Catenation
This is when the last consonant of the first word is joined to
the first vowel of the next word. This is very very common in
English, and can be very confusing for students. For example:

‘an apple’ sounds like ‘a napple’ (Teacher, what is a napple?)

Elision
Elision means that you lose a sound in the middle of a
consonant cluster, sometimes from the middle of a word. E.g.
‘sandwich’ becomes ‘sanwich’.
Or from the end of a word. For example:

‘fish and chips’ ‘fishnchips’

Intrusion
This is when an extra sound ‘intrudes’. There are three sounds
that often do this /r/ /j/ and /w/

E.g. ‘go on’ sounds like ‘gowon’

I agree sounds like ‘aiyagree’

Law and order sounds like ‘lawrunorder’

[I probably should have used a phonemic keyboard!]

If you want to discover more about features of connected

speech- and I think it’s fascinating stuff, there’s a list of
useful books at the end of the post, but now let’s look at some
activities to help raise awareness and encourage more natural
sounding speech.

Connected speech activities

I remember reading somewhere that there are three ways to
deal with pronunciation in the classroom: integrating it into
other activities, dealing with it discretely, and completely
ignoring it. Let’s assume we aren’t going to do the latter,
and look at the other two approaches.

Integrated activities
I strongly believe that students should be made aware of the
basics of connected speech right from the start. I don’t mean
that you should be teaching your beginners exactly what
catenation is, but you can certainly show them how words link
together and what happens to sounds in the stream of speech.
You don’t have to be an expert, and you don’t even need to
know very much about the technical aspects; you just need to
listen to yourself very carefully and notice what is happening
in your mouth as you speak.

Drilling and using the board

At lower levels, we tend to teach quite a lot of functional
chunks, such as ‘What’s your name?’ Phonetically that could be
transcribed as /wɔ:tsjəneɪm/. However, this is likely to
confuse (terrify) the students. Instead, using the board, you
can just show the students how the words link by using
arrows, and write the schwa /ə/over the top of ‘your’ .
Alternatively, you can use your fingers to show how the three
words (separate fingers) meld into one long sound (push
fingers together). And model and drill the phrase as it is said
naturally.

If students struggle with longer phrases, try the technique of

back-chaining, starting from the last sound and working up to
the whole sound bit by bit. For example with ‘Where do you
come from?’ you drill ‘frum’ ‘kumfrum’ ‘dz-kumfrum’ ‘where-dz-
kumfrum’ I have no idea why this works- but it does.

Using recording scripts

Where new language has been recorded (or by recording it
yourself), ask students to first look at the chunk of language
written down and try saying it a few times. Then play the
recording several times and ask them to write down what they
hear, however they want to spell it. Use the two written forms
to elicit the differences (such as the use of the schwa) and
then drill the more natural pronunciation. You could of course
just say the phrase for them, but it can be hard to keep
repeating something exactly the same way.

Make it part of presenting new language

Whenever you are dealing with new language, you need to be
thinking about the meaning, the form AND the pronunciation.
So if you’re teaching ‘Have you ever + past participle’, make
sure you’re teaching it as something like /əvju:w’evə/ not
‘Have… you… ever…’ You don’t need to explain that the first
/h/ is elided or that there’s an intrusive /w/- just provide a
good model.

Incidentally, I say ‘something like’ because individual ways of

connecting and simplifying speech do vary a bit.

Features of connected speech

Fluent speakers of English speak very fast- 350-450 words

per minute. It is not necessary to articulate that fast until
you are ready. However, it is important to be able to
understand the flow of speech and the features of connected
speech that facilitate rapid articulation.

We can divide these features into 3 areas:

LINKING, OMISSION, MODIFICATION

LINKING OMISSION MODIFICATION
d) Catenation d. Elision: vowels d. contraction
e) Linking /r/ e. Elision: e. assimilation :
f) Intrusion consonants progressive,
/w/,/r/,/j/ regressive,
coalescent
f. reduction/weak
forms
1. LINKING

b) Catenation
This is when the last consonant of the first word is
joined to the first vowel of the next word. This is very
very common in English, and can be very confusing for
students. For example:

‘an apple’ sounds like ‘a napple’ (Teacher, what is a

napple?)

I want that orange –> thadorange

This afternoon –> thisafternoon Is he busy? –> Isi

busy?

Cats or dogs? –> Catserdogs?

c. Linking /r/
RP/BBC is non-rhotic. Therefore, in words such as sister,
hear, car, etc. r is not pronounced. However, if the words
ending in /r/ are followed by words beginning with vowel
sounds, the /r/ is restored.

e.g. Doctor Adams, sister and brother, hear it

Her English is excellent. (/r/ is pronounced)

Her German is absolutely awful. (/r/ is not pronounced)

My brother lives in London. (/r/ is not pronounced)

My brother always phones at the wrong time. (/r/ is

pronounced)

f. Intrusion /w/, /r/, /j/

This occurs when one word end in a vowel and the next begin
with one. The intrusive sound depends on the vowel at the end
of the first word:

Final sound of the Intrusive sound example

first word
/ə/ /ɑ:/ /r/ China /r/ isn’t
small
/ʊ/ /u:/ /aʊ/ /əʊ/ /w/ Blue /w/ eyes
/ɪ/ /i:/ /eɪ/ /aɪ/ /j/ Free /j/ and easy

PRACTICE:
Try saying the following phrases
Saw and ran

My uncle

Far away

Go away

What do you notice?

Look at the following groups of phrases and be prepared to

explain what type of linking occurs

Her English

Car engine

Mother and baby

America and Canada

Law and order

You are

Go off

Sue always wants to eat

He is

They are

She always takes my arm

Look at the following sentence and identify where you would
expect to find linking:

You are obviously unhappy about the idea of it.