A lot of the time when I'm listening to non-native speakers speak English, I can tell that they're non-native speakers because they don't use connected speech.

Connected speech is when words and phrases are pronounced differently than how they should be pronounced.

So for example: 'What are you doing?'

'What are you doing?'

This is correct.

The pronunciation is correct, but when a native speaker says this, he'll say it really fast and it will sound like this.

'Woddayuhdowing?' 'Woddayuhdowing?'

Woddayuh, woddayuh, woddayuhdowing?

So today, I want to give you a tip to help you improve your connected speech so you can start sounding more like a native speaker.

'And' is a very common word in English, right?

We use it every day. 100 times. 1000 times.

Let's say we have 'and' here and then we have another word after 'and', and this word starts with a vowel.

You can join these two words together.

Let me show you what I mean.

Let's pretend we have two words together. 'And apples.' 'And apples.'

When we say this really quickly, we don't say the 'D'. We just say 'an'.

And when we join 'an' and 'apples' together, it sounds like this:

'Anapples.' 'Anapples.'

So for example, if I say, 'I went to the shop today and I bought some pears "anapples".' 'Anapples.'

Let's look at some more examples with different vowels.

'Anelephants.' 'Anelephants.'

So you could say, 'I went to the zoo, and I saw some lions "anelephants".'

'Anice.' 'Anice.'

You could say, 'I went to the shops and I bought some drinks "anice".' 'Anice.'

'Anoranges.' 'Anoranges.'

You could say, 'I went to the shop and I bought some limes "anoranges".'

Limes 'anoranges'.

'Anumbrellas.' 'Anumbrellas.'

'When I went out today, I took my water "anumbrellas".' 'Anumbrellas.'

So you can see here we don't say 'an-D' and then the word.

We just say 'an'. We don't say that 'D' sound.

So now you try. 'Anapples.'

'Anelephants.'

'Anice.'

'Anoranges.'

'Anumbrellas.'

And that is the end of the lesson today.

So make sure the next time you say 'and', and there's a word after 'and', which starts with a vowel, don't say the 'D'.

You will sound more like a native speaker.