Pratica di Shadowing: How To Contract TO BE | Australian Pronunciation Lesson - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

G'day, you mob.

Pete here from Aussie English, and this is the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English.

Man, I am excited because today this episode is about one of my favourite subjects, as you can tell, because I've had too much caffeine and I am talking quickly.

Fast spoken English.

How to understand fast spoken English, but also, more importantly, how to do it yourself so that when you're speaking English, you sound much more natural, OK?

We don't sort of sound like robots.

Hello, I'm robot, not simple.

Just saying one word after the other in English.

We contract words.

There's a lot of things going on.

There's a lot of sound changes.

So, mastering these is going to help you sound much more natural when speaking.

So, today we're going to look at the auxiliary verbs am, are and is, and how these contract down to pronouns like I,

they and you when speaking English quickly.

Are you aware of it?

Is it worth learning?

As you'll see in this episode, it's definitely worth learning because it's going to help you understand native English speakers and advanced English speakers.

So, your listening comprehension is going to improve.

And then it's also going to help you sound like them yourself when you speak English.

Okay.

So, in this lesson, I'm going to break down the auxiliary verb

and the pronoun and how that's pronounced when we make a few subtle changes by contracting things together.

And then after each of these, I'll go through three example sentences that I want you to listen to and then repeat.

Okay.

So, find somewhere that you can speak out loud so that you can practice your pronunciation.

Focus on the contractions that I'm making, the way that these sounds are changing.

And also, because these are questions, focus on the intonation.

There's going to be some rising intonation tails at the ends of these sentences.

Okay.

Before we get into it, though, don't forget, make sure that you stay right until the very end, because I have a secret weapon, a little bit of secret sauce,

a little gift for you guys that is going to help you level up your English pronunciation lightning fast.

All right.

Are you ready?

Let's go. So, number one. Am I.

Now, this goes through quite a few changes. Am I.

Firstly, we can connect the M in the auxiliary verb am to the I vowel sound, am I.

Right.

That M sound goes to the next syllable. Am I. Am I.

After this, we can turn the a sound in the auxiliary verb am into a schwa sound, a.

Okay, so you're going to hear am I. Am I.

And we covered this in previous lesson lessons on the auxiliary verbs do and have.

Okay, you can check these out up above here.

The next step, and I really didn't know how to transcribe this into the IPA, into the International Phonetic Alphabet,

is that the schwa sound can actually completely disappear and you're going to hear this syllabic M sound in front of my.

So, this is sort of complicated linguistic speak for having the mouth closed in an M position and vocalising it.

So, going mm, mm, and then saying my.

So, you may hear people from time to time saying my, my.

Right.

It's like they've just reduced that er my, stopped saying the schwa and they've just gone straight to my, like they've closed their mouth for the schwa sound.

My, my.

So, let's go through some example sentences.

Am I coming to? Am I coming too?

Am I going to learn anything?

Am I the only one?

Number two, are you? Are you?

And you will notice in Australian English, is there a rhotic r sound in the auxiliary verb, are?

Do you hear it or do you not hear it when I pronounce that word?

Ah, look at my tongue.

Ah.

Australian English is non-rhotic.

So, we only say the R sound in these words when there's a vowel sound after them.

So, in the case of RU, we don't say the R.

RU.

So, the first and only step to contracting R and U is turning R into a schwa sound, right.

We reduce it.

It's unstressed.

So, it becomes the schwa.

UU.

And you may even hear you becoming yuh as well, where the ooo vowel sound in you has become a schwa.

So, you may hear a yuh.

A yuh.

In fact, I'd probably say that, to be honest.

Yeah.

A yuh.

You'll see why in a sec.

Okay, sounds weird.

Let's listen to it in context.

Are you leaving? Are you leaving? Are you working today? Are you working today?

Are you going for a walk?

So, it could be either.

Are you, are you going for a walk or are you, are you going for a walk?

Number three, is he.

With the word he, the H disappears, right?

When we link this together, especially when there's a Z or another consonant sound before that H,

you're going to hear is Z, right? Is Z.

There's no H sound, it's H deletion.

It's gone.

It's been deleted. Is Z. Is Z.

The next step, like we did previously, is we put that schwa in, in place of the auxiliary verb vowel.

So, you're going to hear ʻzī, ʻzī, ʻzī.

The last thing here that's really interesting is

that sometimes we can actually completely get rid of that schwa sound and you're just going to hear zi, zi.

100

It's kind of like the am I and the my zi, zi.

101

Let's go through some examples.

102

I'll say them once with a z and then the second time with z. Is he at home?

103

Z at home? Is he from Australia?

104

Z from Australia?

105

Is he asking for help?

106

Is he asking for help?

107

Number four, is she. Is she.

108

So, the first step here, because we have that Z sound next to the sh sound, is she, is she.

109

It's really hard to do that.

110

Is she, especially fast.

111

Is she, is she, and say both. Is she.

112

We get rid of the Z sound.

113

So, you're just going to hear i she. Is she. Is she.

114

The next step is turning that i vowel sound from the word is into a schwa. Is she. Is she.

115

Now, we could just say she and then whatever the phrase is after that.

116

But because none of that auxiliary verb is left sort of smashed into the word that is she, it's not really contraction.

117

It is, I think, elision, where we've just removed the auxiliary verb is from the sentence, right.

118

So, an example might be, is she a model? Is she a model?

119

So, we've contracted it there.

120

If we just get rid of the word is, you could say, is she a model?

121

Is she a model?

122

Where it's elision.

123

Okay.

124

So, they're sort of different, but we're talking about contractions today.

125

Second example.

126

Is she travelling at the moment?

127

Is she travelling at the moment?

128

Is she going for a run?

129

Is she going for a run?

130

Number five. Are we?

131

Remember that R.

132

No R sound is in R.

133

There's no R in R.

134

There is when I say it like that, though.

135

R in R.

136

Confusing.

137

Australian English, huh? Are we. Are we.

138

So, the first and only thing that we do here is turn R into a schwa. Are we. Are we. Are we late? Are we late?

139

Are we going to be invited?

140

Are we going to be invited?

141

Are we catching the train?

142

Are we catching the train?

143

Six, are they?

144

Are they similar to the one before, there's only one step here and it is turning are into the schwa so that you'll hear are they? Are they?

145

Are they your friends? Are they your friends? Are they playing soccer? Are they playing soccer? Are they at home? Are they at home?

146

Number seven, the last one, guys. Is it. Is it.

147

First step, the zzz sound joins to that vowel sound i. Is it. Is it.

148

I don't know why I'm doing this, but it feels like that's what I need to be doing. Is it. Is it.

149

The next step is turning the i in the word is into a schwa. Is it. Is it.

150

The next step, we could potentially turn the i sound in it into a schwa as well.

151

So you may hear just ızızızız. Is it?

152

And then also, or not and then, more either or, right?

153

We could also do what happened with is he when it became just zee, we could say zit.

154

Zit.

155

Okay.

156

So, the most natural ones here, I think that I would say there might be three.

157

Zit.

158

Zit. And zit.

159

Okay.

160

I'm going to say these phrases naturally without thinking about it and we'll just see how I say it.

161

Okay, so no preparation beforehand.

162

I'm not staging it.

163

Is it snowing? Is it snowing?

164

So, there I've said, is it two schwa's.

165

Is it snowing?

166

I could say, is it snowing outside?

167

So, just zut, zut, not even zit.

168

Is it snowing outside?

169

It's almost like I'm just saying, is it so quickly that I've just gotten rid of that schwa at the start.

170

Is it snowing outside?

171

Is it a long way away?

172

Is it a long way away?

173

Is it going to change anything?

174

Is it going to change anything? So, there you go.

175

That's something we can end on, right?

176

It's really interesting that this sort of level of contraction in these phrases, it can vary.

177

And native speakers like myself may use multiple different kinds, right.

178

If we're really contracting everything together, you might hear things like, is it snowing outside?

179

But then if we're speaking a little more slowly or in, say, maybe a more formal situation, we may not contract it as much.

180

Is it snowing outside?

181

So, all sorts of things like that can happen when speaking English.

182

It's good to be aware of them and it's good to be able to do them.

183

Okay.

184

So, before I tell you about my special gift for you today, let's recap what we have gone through.

185

Okay.

186

So, I'm going to say the auxiliary verbs and the pronouns and how they get contracted together.

187

I'll give you one of the examples.

188

I won't go through all of them.

189

And then we'll go through a little phrase for each of them for you to practice one more time.

190

Okay.

191

You ready?

192

Let's go. Am I. Am I.

193

Am I going to see a koala? Are you. Are you.

194

Are you gonna see a koala? Is he? Is he?

195

Is he gonna see a koala? Is she? Is she?

196

Is she gonna see a koala? Are we?

197

Are we going to see a koala? Are they?

198

Are they going to see a koala? Is it? Is it?

199

Is it going to see a koala?

200

So, there you go, guys.

201

I hope that helped.

202

I hope you can now hear and understand fast spoken English.

203

But more importantly, I hope you can say it yourself.

204

Okay.

205

If you would like to take your pronunciation to the next level, if you want to master things like the IPA,

206

the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is what I think is the secret weapon to improving your pronunciation by yourself.

207

If you also want to nail all the different vowel sounds in Australian English

208

and all of the different consonant sounds in Australian English, then I recommend that you go and check out my Australian pronunciation course.

209

There'll be a special link in the description today where for the next 24 hours after this video

210

and podcast has been published, you can sign up for 33% off the normal price.

211

Okay.

212

And lastly, I recently added an extra 25

213

advanced pronunciation lessons for you to complete after you've mastered the different sounds in Australian English.

214

These are things covering the syllabic L, the syllabic N, different connected speech,

215

consonant clusters, how sounds disappear, the Australian R sound.

216

There are loads of things in there, little nuggets, little secret tips for you to learn so

217

that you sound much more like an advanced English speaker when speaking English.

218

Go figure.

219

Anyway, I'm Pete.

220

This is Aussie English.

221

Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you next time.

222

See ya!

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

Pratica di Shadowing: How To Contract TO BE | Australian Pronunciation Lesson - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Perché praticare la conversazione con questo video?

Grammatica & Espressioni nel Contesto

Trappole di Pronuncia Comuni

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?