gohoos02

Understanding Fast Speech

I've written a book on how to understand fast speech.  The purpose of the book is to train your ears so that you can understand various words when their pronunciation is different from the pronunciation taught in most textbooks.  You probably already know that a word can have more than one meaning; similarly a word can also have more than one pronunciation. 

For example, the word "for" can sound like "fer" when it's not stressed.  The phrase "for me" can sound like "fer me".  We see this same thing within a word, such as the word "information", where they syllable "for" sounds like "fer" (in<fer>ma-tion).  The pronounciation of the word "information" follows the same pattern as the sentence "What's for dinner?" ("What's <fer> dinner?").  Both have four syllables; the third syllable has the main stress; and in each case "for" is unstressed and sounds like "fer". So the word "for" has two pronounciations -- "for" when it's stressed and "fer" when it's not stressed.  You'll hear both sounds in fast speech. 

The word "of" also two pronunciations.  Sometimes it sounds like "of" (the textbook pronunciation), but when it's unstressed and followed by a word that begins with a consonant sound the "v" sound often disappears and the word "of" then sounds the same as the article "a" (the schwa sound).

Here are some phrases that contain the word "of": 

all of my friends
most of my friends 
many of my friends 
some of my friends
one of my friends.

The word "of" in these phrases often sounds like the word "a" (pronounced "uh"), because the "v" sound disappears:  

all a my friends
most a my friends
many a my friends
some a my friends
one a my friends.

The book mainly consists of listening drills designed to help you recognize these words when you hear them.  The chapter on the word "of", for example, contains over 200 phrases and sentences that contain the word "of"!  

Here is a list of words that I talk about in the book, which have two or more pronunciations:  

-- or (er), for (fer), are (er), your (yer); 
-- an (en/in), can (ken/kin), and (en/in); 
-- he (ee), him (im), his (is), her (er), them (em/im);
-- to (ta), you (ya), do (da);
-- and others.  

This list of words may not have a lot of meaning for you until you begin to hear these words in fast speech.  A lot of them are covered in the videos that make up this blog.  The advantage of the book is that each chapter contains many examples of each word as it is used in both phrases and sentences.  Hearing a lot of examples will help train your ears so that it becomes easier for you to recognize these sounds in fast speech. 

The book also contains various combinations of words. A common combination involves a word that ends in "t" followed by the word "you", such as the phrases "at you", "that you", "want you", "but you", and so on.  Here the word "you" has two pronunciations ("you" and "ya") and the "t" has two pronunciation ("t" and "ch"), which gives us four pronunciations for these phrases:  

at you ..... at ya
at chu ..... at cha

This same thing is seen within a word boundary too, such as in the words "future", "mature", "nature", and so on, where the "t" sounds like "ch".

Something similar happens when a word that ends in "d" is followed by the word "you", such as "around you", "need you", "would you", and so on.  Here the word "you" has two pronunciations ("you" and "ya") and the "d" has two pronunciations ("d" and "j"), which gives us four possible sounds for these phrases:  

need you ..... need ya
need ju ........ need ja

This same thing is seen within a word boundary, such as in the words "gradually", "education", and so on, where the "d" sounds like "j".

Sounds can also disappear in fast speech, such as in consonant clusters where three or more consonants come together and the middle consonant is a "t".  An example is the word "Christmas".  Here the consonant cluster is the "stm".  It's very difficult to pronounce the "t" sound when it comes between two other consonants, so we usually don't!  The "t" sound disappears and "Christmas" sounds lilke "Chrismas".  

This combination also occurs in phrases as well (not just within a word), such as when a word that ends in "t" is followed by another word that begins with a consonant.  Some examples are the phrases "last night" ("lass night"), "best friend" ("bess friend"), "fast food" ("fass food"), and so on.  In each case the "t" is between two other consonants and it often disappears in fast speech.

These are just some of the things covered in the book that you need to know in order to understand fast speech.  Of course reading about it isn't the best way to train your ears!  The way to train your ears is to listen to many phrases and sentences that contain each word or combination of words.  If you do that, your ability to recognize these sounds in fast speech ("fass speech") will definitely improve!  

Of course, the videos given in this blog will help you do that too, but perhaps it's better to practice listening to each word in a more focused way first and then supplementing those exercises with such things as videos and conversations. 

The book is written for intermediate and advanced students, especially those who intend to study here in the USA.  Of course, other students can also benefit from this course.