Jose Honatan Tomasino Jose Alexander Ulloa

One of the problems we often encounter with regard to the pronunciation of English is related to what is known as "connected speech." His peculiarities imply that non-native speakers have serious problems in interpreting what is being said , either due to the tendency to unite with other words and pronounce them as a single unit or simply to the fact pronounced differently depending on the sounds that precede or preceding a given word.

When we speak of "connected speech" must be assumed that, in English, there are a large number of words for which there are two ways of pronunciation: one strong and one weak. The realization of one or another pronunciation depend on these words appear isolated or as part of a sentence. This happens with words that still needed to construct a sentence, do not provide a significant amount of information.

Aspects of Connected Speech Here is a list of the most important aspects of connected speech, i.e. how words change when caught up in the great rush of everyday conversation. If you are not a phonetics/phonology student then skip over the technical bits and just listen to the examples.
Weak Forms Assimilation of Place of Articulation Yod Coalescence Gap filling exercise on Yod Coalescence Elision Assimilation of Voicing R-linking The Glottal Stop

When we talk about weak forms in the phonetics of English this regards a series of words which have one pronunciation (strong) when isolated, and another (weak) when not stressed within a phrase, example:
a car /e k:/

I bought a car

/a b:t k:/

Weak forms are usually distinguished by a change in vowel quality from a border position on the vowel quadrilateral to a central position. The vowel in a weak form is usually the schwa (). Weak forms are pronounced more quickly and at lower volume in comparison to the stressed syllables. They are also not central to changes in intonation.

And fish and chips (fishn chips) a chair and a table (a chair n a table) Can She can speak Spanish better than I can (The first "can" is the weak form, the second the full form.)

Of A pint of beer Thats the last of the wine!

Have Have you finished? (weak) Yes, I have. (full) Should Well, you should have told me. (Both "should" and "have" are weak here)

As I have mentioned, a native speaker's aim in connecting words is maximum ease and efficiency of tongue movement when getting our message across. In minimizing our efforts, we weaken our articulation. If articulation is weakened too much, the sound may disappear altogether, a process known as elision. It is the vowels from unstressed syllables which are the first to be elided in non-precise pronunciation.

Common sound deletions A syllable containing the unstressed "schwa" is often lost. For example,

int(e)rest, sim(i)lar, lib(a)ry, diff(e)rent, t(o)night.

/ t / and / d / With consonants, it is / t / and / d / which are most commonly elided, especially when they appear in a consonant cluster. For example,

chris(t)mas san(d)wich The same process can occur across word boundaries, for example, mus(t) be the firs(t) three you an(d) me we stopp(ed) for lunch

/h/ The / h / sound is also often deleted. For example,

you shouldnt (h)ave tell (h)im.

When two vowel sounds meet, we tend to insert an extra sound which resembles either a / j /, / w / or / r / , to mark the transition sound between the two vowels, a device referred to as intrusion. For example: