Pratica di Shadowing: Reductions & Contractions in English | Speak Faster and Understand Natives - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
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I'm gonna let you in on something.
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A lot of English learners spend years learning English and then they listen to native speakers and think, what on earth did they just say?
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They speak so fast.
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That's because many native speakers don't say, I'm going to let you know, or a lot of English learners.
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They say, gonna, lotter, kinda, shouldter, and so on.
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And if nobody's taught you about reductions in English, then English can sound really fast for you.
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So by the end of this English pronunciation lesson, you're going to recognize and start using the most important reductions and contractions in natural spoken English.
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My name is Emma and welcome to my channel Pronunciation with Emma, where I help English learners from around the world master British English pronunciation.
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I'm a Cambridge Salter qualified English teacher with a degree in linguistics, a master's degree in teaching English, and over 16 years of teaching experience.
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Okay, let's scooch over here.
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So these words like gonna, wanna, shudder, and so on are called contractions or reductions.
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For this video, I'm going to call them reductions, but your teacher and other resources may call them contractions.
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Just know that we're talking about the same thing.
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So what is a reduction?
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A reduction is when sounds in a word or phrase get compressed in natural fast speech.
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Just keep in mind that this isn't lazy or incorrect English.
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It's absolutely fine and everyone uses it in fast informal speech.
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In more formal speech, of course, you're going to use the full forms, the uncontracted forms.
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So you'll say going to, want to, and so on, instead of gonna and wanna.
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However, if you're using non -reduced forms all the time, especially in informal conversations, it can sound a bit too formal or even robotic.
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So let's start with the most common reductions.
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These are the ones with to, have and of.
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Try repeating each one out loud after me as we go along.
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Number one, gonna, going to, I'm gonna call you later.
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Wanna, want to, do you want to grab a coffee?
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gotta or more commonly gotta with the glottal stop got to I gotta go now or more commonly I gotta go now
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just know that when you use the glottal stop here
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and say gotta it really sounds quite informal
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so don't ever use this in a very formal situation but in casual everyday speech it's absolutely fine to use. Have to. Have to.
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You have to try this. Has to. Has to.
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She has to leave early.
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Ought to.
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Or ought to.
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You ought to see a doctor.
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You ought to see a doctor.
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Kinda.
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Kind of.
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It's kinda hard.
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Outer, or more commonly, outer.
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Out of.
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Get out of here.
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Get out of here.
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sorta or sorta, sort of.
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I sorta agree, I sorta agree.
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Lotta or lotta, a lot of.
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I've got a lot of work, I've got a lot of work.
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The next ones we're going to look at are modal verbs.
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Listen carefully and repeat.
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Keep in mind here that I'm going to read the words with the weak form.
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The weak form of these words uses the schwa sound.
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So in the example sentences, I'm going to read it with the schwa because that's how we would naturally say them.
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Shoulda.
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So that's with the strong U. Should have.
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I should have studied more. So should.
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The weak form. Should.
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So it's a little bit softer.
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Coulda. Could have.
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We coulda won.
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So could, could.
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Really, really quick, really relaxed.
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We coulda won.
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Woulda. Would have.
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I woulda helped if I'd known.
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Mighta or mighta. Might have.
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She might have missed the bus She might have missed the bus muster must have he must have forgotten
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next let's look at reducing the word you this is less
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of a contraction a more a case of word stress
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and connected speech in english in order to speak more fluently
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you must use weak forms of words this is why words like to sound like to
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and you becomes yuh in rapid speech in the examples that I'm going to show you with you,
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you'll see that the d and y sounds combine and create this j sound.
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Now listen carefully. Did you.
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They come together. Did you. Did you.
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This is a feature of connected speech called assimilation, which basically means that we change a sound to make it easier to transition to another one.
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Here are some more examples for you.
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Listen and repeat.
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D 'ja. Do you.
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D 'ja like it. Did ya. Did you.
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D 'ja hear that. Would ya. Would you.
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Would you mind closing the window. Could ya. Could you.
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Could ya help me. Should ya.
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Should you you.
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Should you call them first?
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Keep in mind that we would never actually write these words in this way, but we do say them like this.
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Okay, so these next reductions that I'm going to show you are extremely common in informal conversations.
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So listen carefully and repeat.
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Lemme.
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Let me.
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Let me check.
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Gimme.
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Give me.
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Gimme a second.
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Tell em.
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Tell them.
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Tell them I'll be late.
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So with this one, them in rapid speech becomes um.
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So tell them becomes tell him.
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Here's another example.
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I saw him yesterday.
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Im.
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Him.
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I told him earlier.
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So do you remember before we talked about the weak forms like you and to becoming ya and to?
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Well, him and her also do the same.
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So him becomes im.
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Her becomes a.
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Like for example, I asked her to leave.
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Instead of I asked her to leave, I asked her to leave.
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Okay, now let's look at and.
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The strong form is and, with a very open a.
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But said quickly, we soften it and we remove the d at the end.
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An.
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An.
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This is why you'll sometimes see it written as an apostrophe n apostrophe, as in rock and roll and fish and chips.
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And while we don't normally write it with the apostrophe in informal writing, you may see it written this way in books because it's trying to mimic the way that we speak.
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Or perhaps you'll see it on shop signs and things like
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that so it's good to be aware of it and know what it means.
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So here are some more examples to practice, listen and repeat.
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An, and.
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Come and sit down.
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Rock and roll.
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Rock and roll.
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I love rock and roll music.
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Okay I've saved the most advanced ones for last for you.
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Double contractions.
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These are when two contractions combine in very fast informal speech.
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For example, in the sentence, I would not have done that if I were you, becomes I wouldn't have done that if I were you.
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Now, we would very, very rarely actually write the double contracted form, maybe in books and things like that to, again, replicate the way that we would say it,
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but we would actually say it this way.
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So, let's practice them together, starting with modal verbs.
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Wouldn't a.
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Would not have.
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I wouldn't have said that if I'd known.
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Couldn't a.
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Could not have.
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She couldn't have done it alone.
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Shouldn't a.
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Should not have.
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You shouldn't have driven.
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mustn't a must not have he mustn't have seen the email
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keep in mind that have becomes of
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if the next word starts with a vowel sound
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or just simply uh if the next word starts with a consonant sound
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so you can say i wouldn't have said that if i'd known
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or i wouldn't have said that
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if i'd known both are very common i also want to add an interesting side note here for you.
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So in certain parts of England, like Yorkshire, where I'm from, or the Midlands, we often reduce these even further and say want of,
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come to, shunt of, and even don't of for does not have.
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So instead of saying he doesn't have time, I could say he don't have time.
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or I shouldn't have done that.
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You may hear I shouldn't have done that.
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So just keep that in mind if you ever go to Yorkshire or the Midlands.
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Now there's a good pronouns using would and have.
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Ida.
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I would have.
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Ida helped but I was working.
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Youda.
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You would have.
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You'd have loved it.
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Weda.
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We would have have.
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We'd have arrived earlier, but traffic was awful.
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So notice that I'm saying we'd have arrived.
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We'd have arrived earlier, because arrived starts with a vowel sound.
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If you want to say we'd have arrived, sounds a bit clunky in English, so if the next word starts with a vowel, you add that the back in.
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We'd have arrived.
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But if you wanted to say something like we would have gone, then you would say we'da gone.
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They'da.
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They would have.
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They'da told us if they knew.
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And again, you can say these like I'da helped, but I was working.
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You'da loved it and so on.
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Now lastly, let's look at there, would and have.
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They'd have.
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They'd have.
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They'd have been more people if it was free.
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Now for the negative, don't worry, we don't triple contract this.
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So for there would not have, we would just say there wouldn't have.
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So there wouldn't have been time, for example.
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We just contract the would not have to wouldn't have.
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So there you have it.
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This is everything you ever need to know about how to pronounce reductions and contracted forms in English.
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There is also one extra word that I couldn't quite fit into any categories in this video, which is I don't know.
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So in the sentence, I don't know if I can go, do you know how we would write this and reduce this?
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If so, let me know down in the comments.
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And remember, you don't have to use reduced forms in English, but they are essential if you want to speak more fluently and naturally and also understand fast English.
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Also remember that I've created a free PDF cheat sheet with everything in this video.
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So every reduction, every full form, every phonetic transcription, and every example sentence that I've included in this lesson.
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Think of it as your cheat sheet for understanding fast English and speaking more fluently.
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Remember that you can download it completely for free using the link below in the description.
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If you enjoyed this video, remember to give it a like and subscribe for more British English pronunciation lessons.
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I will see you in the next lesson.
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Bye bye! so
Informazioni su questa lezione
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.