Are you looking for help with how to prepare for ielts speaking test?
Want to feel more confident and reach for Band 9?
Even if you just want improve your English pronunciation, in this video, these are exactly
the things that I'm going to help you to do.
This is part 5 of a 6 part video series for how to prepare for the ielts speaking test,
specifically, how to improve your pronunciation.
Which means that it’ll be just as useful for you even if you’re not preparing for
that test.
So in the last video we looked at weak sounds and how they are pronounced in unstressed
syllables and some grammatical words.
So if you haven’t seen that video, then click here and go to that video.
And I’ll wait here while you catch up.
If you have seen that video you'll know that this video is about linking sounds.
Now, have you ever noticed how in English when one word meets another word, the sound
at the end of the first word links to the sound at the beginning of the next word and
that’s really important for fluency and coherence.
And sometimes, the sound at the end of the first word and the sound at the beginning
of the next word can change completely.
So it’s vital in order to sound confident and clear in your English.
Now there are three patterns that you can follow.
So here they are:
Consonant to vowel.
Words that end with a consonant link to words that start with a vowel and so they connect
with each other.
For example, ‘get up’ sounds more like ‘getup’ and ‘come in’ sounds more
like ‘comin’.
Number 2, Vowel to vowel.
Words that end with a vowel often insert a consonant to link to words that start with
a vowel.
And these are called ‘intrusive consonants’ and in British English we have three of them:
The first is a ‘w’ sound as in ‘wet’.
For example, ‘who opened the door’ sounds more like ‘who-w-opened the door’, ‘who
wopened’ can you hear that?
and ‘no entry’ sounds more like ‘no-w-entry’, ‘no-w-entry’.
The second is a ‘y’ sound as in ‘yet’.
For example, ‘she opened’ sounds more like ‘she-y-opened’, ‘she-y-opened’
can you hear that?
It’s more like ‘yopenned’, ‘she-y-opened’.
And ‘I asked’ sounds more like ‘I-y-asked’, ‘I-y-asked’.
And the third is an ‘r’ sound as in ‘rent’.
For example, ‘put the pizza in the oven’ sounds more like ‘put the pizza-r-in the
oven’, ‘pizza-r-in the oven’, can you hear that?
’rin the oven’, ‘pizza-r-in the oven’ and ‘saw in half’ sounds more like ‘saw-r-in
half’, ‘saw-r-in half’, ‘r-in half’, ‘saw-r-in half’.
And the last one is consonant to consonant
Now if those two consonant sounds are the same we wouldn’t say both we would only
say one.
For example, ‘stand down’ sounds more like ‘standown’, ‘standown’.
But notice how I slightly pause on the ‘d’, and this indicates that there are two words,
and this is the join between them.
The same is true for this ‘feel lazy’ sounds more like ‘feelazy’, ‘feelazy’
and ‘big glasses’ sounds more like ‘biglasses’, ‘biglasses’.
But when there are two different consonants that meet between words, their pronunciation
can completely change.
So for example in ‘thought provoking’, the ’t’ at the end of ‘thought’ is
actually pronounced as a ‘p’.
We don’t say two ‘p’ sounds, we only say one, but we slightly pause to indicate
that there is a join between them.
So ‘thought provoking’ sounds more like ‘thoughp-provoking’, ‘thoughp-provoking’.
This is because it helps the words link together and it’s an important part of fluency.
It’s called assimilation and native English speakers use it all the time because it really
adds fluency.
But it’s also an important part of fluency as well as pronunciation.
So if you want to keep learning more about how to prepare for ielts speaking test then
click here, it’ll take you to the final video in the series.
But if you want to learn more about linking sounds, and assimilation, then why don’t
you click here and download a free resource that I’ve created.
It gets to the heart of linking sounds and assimilation.
It give you a load of practice material and loads of audio for you to listen.
So why don’t you click here and download that right now.
Just before you do that however, if you enjoyed this video and you want to find this video
again, why don’t you click like so that you can find this video easily again, and
consider subscribing to this channel because I post weekly videos here every Tuesday at
8.30pm GMT (local London time).
So click here for all the links I mentioned, and I hope to see you next week.