In fluent speech, we don’t say the words

separately, like robots.

In fluent speech, words bump into each other.
Speed and rhythm => changes in pronunciation of
words.
“Life is like a box of chocolates.”
/li feis likea boxo choclates/

This is called:
CONNECTED SPEECH

FEATURES OF CONNECTED SPEECH

1. LINKING
2. ASSIMILATION
3. ELISION
4. REDUCTION
 1. LIKING
In many cases, words are pronounced as if
they were joined together.

POSSIBLE CASES:
C= CONSONANTS, V= VOWELS
-….C] + [V …
-….V] + [V …
-….C] + [C …

C SOUND} + {V SOUND
The final C ‘jumps’ forward and is pronounced
with the V of the beginning of the next word, as
if they formed one syllable.
e.g. an apple > [a-napple]
not at all > [no-ta-tall]
in british English, ‘r’s are not pronounced in final
position. But if there is an actual final ‘r’ spelt + a
V sound. We do pronounce the ‘r’.
this is called “linking ‘R”.
e,g. BUTTER AND JAM

V sound] + [V sound
When two V meet, we introduce a sound to make
the transition easier from one word to the other:
‘intrusive’ sound [r, w, j]
/r/
e.g. the idea of inviting him. /idea-r-of/
I saw film yesterday. /saw-r-a/
/w/
I’ll go out in a minute. /Go-w-out/
/j/
I am in the office. /i-j-am/
C sound] + [same C sound
Two same C sounds, pronounced like a long
consonant sound.

It sounds as if the first C was not released but

the second one was,
e.g. nice summer /ss/
Some money /mm/

2. ASSIMILATION
Sometimes, a consonant sound at the
beginning or end of a word is influenced by
another next to it.

3 types of assimilation
-Regressive / …C/ <- /C … /
-Progressive / …C/ <- /C … /
-Coalescence / …C/ <- /C … /
(in both direction)
 Regressive assimilation
-Backwards
-Initial C affects final C of the previous
word.

e.g. this shop > [this shop] > [thishop]

eight cakes > [eighk kakes]
ten pens > [tem pens]

Progressive assimilation
-Forward
-Final C influences the initial C of the next
word/syllable.
PLURAL e.g. dogs > [dogz]
PAST –ED kissed > [kist]

Coalescence Assimilation
- Bi-direction
- Final C + initial C influence each other – NEW
sound
- /-s, -z, -t, -ts, -d, -dz/ + /j/ -> palatal sounds
/sh, z, tsh/
e.g.
did you, /dz/
this year, /z/
want you… /tsh/

3. Elision
-A sound disappears in string of several
consonant sounds.
- To make articulation easier and keep
speech flow consonant.

e.g.
next week > [nex week]
would have > [would ave]
asked > [askt] > [ast]
4. Reduction
-English is a stress-timed language
(vs syllable are stressed.)
-Not all syllable are stressed.
-About the same time between stresses in a
sentence.
-To fit all syllables between stresses,
Some are reduced in pronunciation (weaker
pronunciation).
-Function words: auxiliary verbs, pronouns,
prepositions, etc.
-In fluent speech, instead of usual
pronunciation (strong form),
We have the weak form.
-The vowel sound of these words becomes a
reduced neutral sound the
Schwa /ǝ/
.e.g.
I can fly. [cǝn]
The man over there. [thǝ]
When will you be arriving? [wǝl yǝ]
QUIZ
1. I booked a room. > bookta (linking)

2. It’s been cancelled. (assimilation)

3. He was left back. > lefbak (elision)

4. Last year > lasjear (assimilation

coalescence)

5. You and me > yowend

(reduction end) (linking w> yowǝ)
 5 Features of Connected Speech
 Last updated 3 July 2018
 11 comments

In spoken discourse the boundaries between

words are very often not clear-cut. Words and
sounds are lost and linked together in different
ways to enable us to articulate with minimal
movement.
This is one of the reasons learners find spoken
discourse more difficult to understand than
written discourse. At higher levels it is often not
a lack of vocabulary which prevents
understanding, but lack of ability to deal with
these features of connected speech. Native
speakers are more able to use top-down
processing to decide whether what they have
heard is red dye or red eye.
Here are some of the more common features of
connected speech:

1. Assimilation
Assimilation occurs when a phoneme (sound) in
one word causes a change in a sound in a
neighbouring word. For example, try saying the
following pairs of words:

 in Bath
 last year
 Hyde Park
 You’ll notice that the last sound of the first
word changes in each case. The /n/ sound
becomes /m/, /t/ becomes /tʃ/ and /d/ beco
mes /b/.

2. Elision
Elision is the loss of a phoneme, most
commonly the last phoneme of a word, and
most commonly the /t/ and /d/ sounds. Have
a look at these examples:
 left back

 stand by

 looked back

 I must go

In each case the last phoneme of the first

word is elided (lost). In the most simple terms,
the reason is that the time and effort
required to change the mouth position from
the /t/ to the /b/ sound (as in the first
example) or the /t/ to the /g/ sound (as in
the last example) is too great!
3. Delayed plosion
Our “red dye” and “red eye” is an example of
this. To articulate “red dye”, we must take a
very short pause before the /d/ sound.
The /d/ is an example of a plosive, consonant
sounds where the vocal tract stops all airflow.
Other examples
are /b/,/d/, /g/, /p/, /t/ and /k/. This
pause before the plosive gives us the name of
this feature, delayed plosion.
Another example: the right tie (delay) –
the right eye (no delay)

4. Catenation
In catenation the last consonant of the first
word is joined to the vowel sound at the start
of the second word. For example:

 pick it up – (learners will hear something like

pi ki tup)
 what is it – (learners will hear something like
wo ti zit)
 5. Intrusion
Intrusion is what you might expect from the
name – an extra sound “intrudes” into the
spoken utternace. Try saying the following
pairs of words:

 media event
 I always

 go away

Do you hear the /r/ sound intruding after

“media”, the /j/ sound intruding after “I” and
the /w/ sound intruding after “go”?
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5 Connected Speech Secrets for Fast, Native
English Pronunciation
WHAT IS CONNECTED SPEECH?
Learn how connected speech will help you to speak
English faster, more fluently, and much more like
a native speaker. Unfortunately, many language
learners don’t know about this subject, but we
should! First of all, let’s make sure we have a
basic understanding. What is connected speech?

Connected speech means that when we speak a

language, words have some effect on each other.
We do not always pronounce words completely
separately with a neat pause in between. In fact,
many words affect each other when you put them
into phrases and sentences. The end sound of one
word often affects the beginning of the next
word.

CONNECTED SPEECH INCLUDES MANY SUB-

TOPICS
There are many different ways that connected
speech happens. Sometimes sounds are added, or
omitted, or changed, in different ways. It is
actually a big subject and we could spend a long
time talking about the several sub-topics in it!

In this lesson, you’ll learn a bit about five

different kinds of connected speech: catenation
or linking, intrusion, elision, assimilation and
geminates.

CATENATION OR LINKING
Catenation, or Linking is probably what most
people think of first when they think of
connected speech. Linking happens when the end
of one word blends into another. When the last
sound of a word is a consonant and the first
sound of the next word is a vowel, you get linking.

For example:

I want this orange –> thisorange

I want that orange –> thadorange

This afternoon –> thisafternoon

Is he busy? –> Isi busy?

Cats or dogs? –> Catserdogs?

INTRUSION
Intrustion means an additional sound “intrudes” or
inserts itself between others. It is often is a /j/
or /w/ or /r/ sound between two other vowel
sounds.

For example:

He asked –> Heyasked

She answered –? Sheyanswered

Do it –> Dewit

Go out –> Gowout

Shoe on –> Shoewon

ELISION
Elision means when a sound disappears. Basically,
a sound is eaten by other stronger or similar
sounds next to it. This often happens with a /t/
or /d/ sound.
For example:

Next door –> Nexdoor

Dad take –> Datake

Most common –> Moscommon

ASSIMILATION
Assimilation means two sounds blend together,
forming a new sound altogether. This often
happens with /t/ and /j/ which make /ʧ/ and with
/d/ and /j/ which make /ʤ /.
For example:

Don’t you — donʧu

Won’t you — wonʧu

Meet you — meeʧu

Did you — diʤu

Would you — wuʤu
GEMINATES
Finally, geminates are like twins — two same
sounds back-to-back. Often when one word ends
with the same letter as the beginning of the next
word, you should connect the two words in your
speech.

For example:

Social life –> socialife

Pet turtle –> Peturtle

These five points and examples may make you feel

like you have a lot to study!

Try learning the International Phonetic Alphabet

so that you can take notes about how words sound
together. Or, you could keep an audio journal on
your smart phone where you record how words
and phrases sound with connected speech.

Here is a cool tool you can try making English

sentences into IPA. Keep in mind that sometimes
real life pronunciation will be different because
of variations.
If you liked this lesson, you’ll love my lesson about
pronunciation and the “schwa” sound. Click here to
view it now.
And click on our video lesson below if you’d like to
hear more about connected speech!
Helping students with connected speech
There is a huge difference between what our
students see printed on a page and what we
actually say in everyday speech.
In a recording of a TESOL Spain Presentation on
Youtube (well worth watching), Mark Hancock
makes the following joke:
Patient: Doctor, Doctor, I’ve got two theik, a near
rake, sore rise, bruise darms a stummer cake and
I far tall the time.
Doctor: I see, perhaps you’d like to way tin the
corridor?
(Try reading it aloud)

The joke [apologies for the vulgarity ]

showcases a good number of examples of
features of connected speech. Teacher can tend
to shy away from highlighting these in the
classroom, but research shows that teaching
learners about connected speech can really make
a difference in terms of how well they
understand native speakers. See for
example, Authentic Communication: whyzit
important ta teach reduced forms (Brown 2006) .
Equally, some ability to use these features in
their own speech will also be likely to make
students more confident and fluent speakers.
Features of connected speech
As a brief overview, there is a strong tendency in
English to simplify and link words together in the
stream of speech, in order to help the language
flow rhythmically. Some of the most common
features:
Assimilation
This is when the sound at the end of one word
changes to make it easier to say the next word.
For example:
‘ten boys’ sounds like ‘ tem boys’ (the /n/ sound
changes to the bilabial /m/ to make it easier to
transition to the also bilabial /b/)
Incidentally bilabial just means two lips together,
which is a good example of the kind of jargon
that puts people off!
Catenation
This is when the last consonant of the first word
is joined to the first vowel of the next word. This
is very very common in English, and can be very
confusing for students. For example:
‘an apple’ sounds like ‘a napple’ (Teacher, what is a
napple?)
Elision
Elision means that you lose a sound in the middle
of a consonant cluster, sometimes from the
middle of a word. E.g. ‘sandwich’ becomes
‘sanwich’.
Or from the end of a word. For example:
‘fish and chips’ ‘fishnchips’
Intrusion
This is when an extra sound ‘intrudes’. There are
three sounds that often do this /r/ /j/ and /w/
E.g. ‘go on’ sounds like ‘gowon’
I agree sounds like ‘aiyagree’
Law and order sounds like ‘lawrunorder’
[I probably should have used a phonemic
keyboard!]
If you want to discover more about features of
connected speech- and I think it’s fascinating
stuff, there’s a list of useful books at the end of
the post, but now let’s look at some activities to
help raise awareness and encourage more natural
sounding speech.
Connected speech activities
I remember reading somewhere that there are
three ways to deal with pronunciation in the
classroom: integrating it into other activities,
dealing with it discretely, and completely ignoring
it. Let’s assume we aren’t going to do the
latter, and look at the other two approaches.
Integrated activities
I strongly believe that students should be made
aware of the basics of connected speech right
from the start. I don’t mean that you should be
teaching your beginners exactly what catenation
is, but you can certainly show them how words link
together and what happens to sounds in the
stream of speech. You don’t have to be an expert,
and you don’t even need to know very much about
the technical aspects; you just need to listen to
yourself very carefully and notice what is
happening in your mouth as you speak.
Drilling and using the board
At lower levels, we tend to teach quite a lot of
functional chunks, such as ‘What’s your name?’
Phonetically that could be transcribed
as /wɔ:tsjəneɪm/. However, this is likely to
confuse (terrify) the students. Instead, using the
board, you can just show the students how the
words link by using arrows, and write the schwa
/ə/over the top of ‘your’ . Alternatively, you can
use your fingers to show how the three words
(separate fingers) meld into one long sound (push
fingers together). And model and drill the phrase
as it is said naturally.
If students struggle with longer phrases, try the
technique of back-chaining, starting from the last
sound and working up to the whole sound bit by
bit. For example with ‘Where do you come from?’
you drill ‘frum’ ‘kumfrum’ ‘dz-kumfrum’ ‘where-dz-
kumfrum’ I have no idea why this works- but it
does.
Using recording scripts
Where new language has been recorded (or by
recording it yourself), ask students to first look
at the chunk of language written down and try
saying it a few times. Then play the recording
several times and ask them to write down what
they hear, however they want to spell it. Use the
two written forms to elicit the differences (such
as the use of the schwa) and then drill the more
natural pronunciation. You could of course just
say the phrase for them, but it can be hard to
keep repeating something exactly the same way.
Make it part of presenting new language
Whenever you are dealing with new language, you
need to be thinking about the meaning, the form
AND the pronunciation. So if you’re teaching
‘Have you ever + past participle’, make sure you’re
teaching it as something like /əvju:w’evə/ not
‘Have… you… ever…’ You don’t need to explain that
the first /h/ is elided or that there’s an intrusive
/w/- just provide a good model.
Incidentally, I say ‘something like’ because
individual ways of connecting and simplifying
speech do vary a bit.