Hey everyone today we're learning all about how to ask questions in English. Most times when learners
think of a question in English they think of them in terms of grammar. You know as a formula:
auxiliary, verb and pronoun and main verb. If you find that useful that's okay,
but once you have mastered getting the structure of questions right and even have learned to break
the rules like a pro. You know sometimes we don't say how are you doing we say how are you doing.
There's a whole other aspect that's also important for fluency, that is how you actually say it.
In this lesson we'll learn how to apply features of connected speech to our questions.
Connected speech is how we cut and connect our words so that we can make our speech flow
more naturally. To illustrate this I'll say this sentence first without connected
speech and then with connected speech. The second time I said it I applied linking.
Also not every syllable is stressed some are unstressed.
By the way if you're new here we make lessons every week to help you understand fast speaking
natives, to be understood by anyone and to connect to the world. Just like Sean who says that our
channel has helped him improve a lot over the past year. So if you want to improve your English be
sure to hit that subscribe button and the bell down below so that you don't miss any of our new
lessons. Practice is the most important thing for mastering connected speech but along with actually
practicing you also need to open your ears and start listening to these features of how we speak.
Once you change your perception of how English sounds you can then much more effectively start
to imitate and get closer in your attempts to speak with fluidity and then repeat and
repeat and repeat until you can say these sounds automatically without having to think about it.
Even though you might not be able to speak like a native English speaker
all the time it's much more likely that you can ask questions like a native because:
to begin with there's a reduced number of words that you'll use to ask questions
You can combine these and a few other words into a wide variety of different questions with
different tenses. Another benefit of improving your ability to ask questions like a native
is that it will have a positive effect on your conversation skills, because questions are
what keeps the conversation rolling along. Also your listening will improve. Have you ever been
asked a question and you didn't understand what the other person said? Well this is a good place
to start to bring a solution to that. In this lesson we'll take a look at a list of some of the
most common questions. I'll also bring Ethan along so that you can also hear how he pronounces them,
which may be different from the way that I say these questions. Before we start practicing
keep in mind that stress plays a big part in the mastering of questions. We've actually
created a lesson where I explain what stress is in this lesson. For now just focus on mimicking.
Also accept the fact that some words will sound quite different to the way you think they should
sound. For example in context have might be pronounced as uv of or even just a. This is what
we call reduction. We usually reduce vowel sounds to schwa which is that a sound I mentioned before.
Sometimes we even drop these vowel sounds. In this same way consonant sounds are dropped or
not fully articulated. For example and becomes an or even just n. Let's get to our first question.
If you say this without connected speech this question will sound something like
That's probably how you pronounced it when you were just starting to learn
but then you realize that's not actually how you're supposed to speak.
You should say what do you want to do. So first these two words get softened.
The t in what isn't fully finalized so you won't hear it as a true t as in what rather you'll hear
this word as wha. So if we drop the t all together we say what do you what do you want to do.
The next feature of connected speech present in this question is saying this as wanna.
All together I say it like: It's also possible to turn these
two into one single syllable. What do you want to do. Ethan who's from the us says it like this:
To develop even more in your understanding of fast speaking natives I highly recommend our Real Life
Native Immersion Course. This course will take you on a 41-week real-life adventure of the English
language, each week exploring a different topic connected to our goal to help you understand and
use real native English and make it a permanent part of your life in a way that is fun natural and
convenient and did you know you can try for free with our three Mini Lessons. All you have to do
is click up here or down in the description box below to learn more and sign up now!
Now on to the next question. You'll often hear this as what does he do, like
in our previous question what sounds like what with a true tea or it's even completely dropped
and did you notice I didn't say he I said e, this is the reduction I mentioned before.
Altogether this is: Ethan would say it like this
With connected speech you could say this question as "where did they go". Because
I'm british I don't say where with a clear r I say this word in isolation as where.
In American English they say where so you actually hear the r sound at the end.
Often times when there's a d before a th sound the th sounds like a d. This is called assimilation
so this would sound like where did they go. Ethan how would you say this?
If you'd like to learn more about the features of connected speech I highly
recommend you watch this lesson I made where you'll learn about intrusion, linking, illusion
and more so you can click up here or down in the description box below to watch it next.
The linking takes place between when and are when are.
And then that r sound links right into the you in American English. When are you going to go,
like when we turned want in to wanna going to becomes gonna when are you gonna go.
All together I'd say this like Let's hear how Ethan says it:
The next one is a nightmare for learner. Tell me in the comments can you say this question
comfortably or share with your fellow Real Lifers is there any other question that trips you up?
The word we're reducing here is have we say it as UV. What have you been up to. We link what with
this of and we link that with you so we get. Then make sure you link the other words been up to what
have you been up to. all together I say and Ethan says this as:
Up to this point we've used a few different words and we've combined them into different
types of questions. Now we're going to do something different. I'll say a question
without connected speech then I'll give you a few seconds to say how you think this sentence is said
with connected speech. After that you'll hear my pronunciation of it and then Ethan's
pronunciation. Keep in mind that now I'm not going to stop and explain each different sound
so you'll rely on your ability to figure out possible modifications to how we say these.
And based on general ideas of linking, reduction, dropping assimilation, etc that we've seen so far.
I hope this lesson has helped you to better understand connected speech in questions
so that you can start asking them in a fluent natural way. But now it's time to go beyond
the classroom and live your English. Aw yeah! This means that learning new words to describe
your English is a good idea. Don't you think? so rather than just using the usual words like good
bad beginner intermediate and advanced today we're going to learn some more colorful language
and vocabulary that's going to help you to describe your English and the English of others.