Are you ready for today's lesson?

You are about to learn all of the secrets to help you understand

fast-talking native English speakers.

I want you to think back to the last time that you sat down

to watch an English movie

or maybe your favourite English TV series.

Have you been to the cinemas to watch the new Matrix movie?

Or maybe you've watched The Sex and the City reunion recently?

Or whatever else you're into. You've got your popcorn,

you've got your soft drink, you're looking forward to this show right

but then you start watching...

Come again?

Today you are going to learn exactly what native English speakers

do to speak fast so that you can understand more English

and so that you can sound more natural when you speak English

as well. There's lots to go through in this lesson

so I've created you a free worksheet so that you can go through

all of the pronunciation points that I explain in this lesson today.

There are some really common phrases and expressions to help

you practise out loud with me.

Make sure you click on the link down in the description below,

right below this video. Go and get that worksheet right now.

We're gonna watch my complete lessons about connected speech,

the secret to understanding fast-talking native English speakers.

Make sure you're ready to practise out loud with me,

that's what it's all about.

Let's get into it.

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Come and visit us at heylady.io and discover the

English-speaking version of you today.

I want you to loosen up, let your hair down and go with the flow

because you just won't hear a native English speaker say

I have got an awesome lesson for all of you today.

no no no no no.

In English, words bump into each other,

sometimes sounds change

new sounds can get added in

and sometimes sounds are dropped or just completely eliminated.

Natural pronunciation is not something that you can see,

you can't read it in a sentence and know exactly how

a native English speaker would say it.

So speaking naturally is really only a skill that you can develop

through practice by listening to native English speakers

and by trying it yourself

and that is exactly what we're going to do today.

We'll take a close look at linking, an important part of

natural pronunciation and I'll explain how it works,

where it happens and how you can use linking to reduce

your accent and sound more natural when you speak English.

Linking is an important part of connected speech in English

and there are three main categories to it.

Consonant to vowel linking.

Consonant to consonant linking.

And vowel to vowel linking.

Now if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet,

please do, click the subscribe button and the bell

so that I can tell you when the next lesson is ready.

And if you need to, just turn on the subtitles down there too.

The most important thing when talking about linking in English

is that we're talking about sounds, not letters.

Sounds that you can hear but not the letters that you can see

and this is really important to keep in mind.

We're talking about consonant sounds linking to vowel sounds

in quite particular situations.

When a word ends in a consonant sound and it's

followed by a word that starts with a vowel sound,

we can link them.

Trip over.

Hang out.

Clean up.

Consonant to vowel linking happens all the time

with phrasal verbs like this.

Now what happens all the time in English is that a word that ends

in a vowel letter on paper

can sometimes end in a consonant sound when spoken.

Can you think of any examples of this?

If you can write some of them in the comments.

They like it loud.

So here, like and it can link together.

Now if we just look at the spelling, like ends in E, a vowel letter.

But the E is silent in this word so like actually ends in a /k/ sound,

a consonant sound, like.

So with linking sounds

don't look for the letters, listen for the sounds.

This is the first clue to help you link words together

when you're speaking English.

All right, let's keep going.

With consonant to vowel linking the sounds blend,

they push together and this is how native English speakers

speak so quickly. We push our words together because it makes it

so much quicker and so much easier to say them.

When one word ends with a consonant sound and the next word

starts with the vowel sound, we can push them together.

The two sounds come together so that they flow.

Would you like a slice of cake?

Say it with me.

Would you like a slice of cake?

So can you tell me,

looking at this sentence where there is a word

that ends in a consonant sound followed by one that

starts with a vowel sound?

There are two examples here.

Like a and slice of.

Both of these vowels are unstressed so the sound actually

reduces to a schwa sound

and if you're not sure about what a schwa sound

is then check out this video next, it will explain everything.

But the /k/ sound from the end of like joins with the vowel schwa,

like a.

Hear how quick that is when you push those sounds together?

Like a.

There's no space between these sounds.

Don't take a breath, don't do anything like that,

just combine the two sounds together until they roll smoothly from the

/k/ to the sound so it becomes like one word.

Like a.

Now slice of follows the same rules. You blend the /s/ from the

end of slice and connect it to the schwa sound at the start of

of

which is pronounced of.

And so it's smooth and connected, moving from one to the other.

Slice of.

Would you like a slice of cake?

Okay so I think the rules are pretty clear here.

Consonant sounds at the end of a word link to a word

following that starts with a vowel sound. Simple.

But I'm going to put a sentence right here on the screen

and then I want you to listen to me say each sentence,

listen carefully because I want you to listen to how these

words connect. Look at the sentence, listen to me say it

and try and work out where this linking can happen.

You can write it in the comments so that it looks like this

using little dashes to link those words together.

Okay, ready.

It's hot today.

Okay.

She ate a piece of toast with avocado.

Where are the linking opportunities?

Ate a.

Piece of.

Ate a piece of.

She ate a piece of..

She ate a piece of toast with avocado.

Did you get those?

Did you hear how those sounds push together so the words

move together in your sentence.

Now speed it up, I want you to say it with me. Are you ready?

She ate a piece of toast with avocado.

Nice one.

Okay.

Did you get a new assignment?

Say it with me.

Did you get a new assignment?

So where in this question can we link words together?

Get a, for sure. Get a.

And new assignment.

Did you get a new assignment?

Remember that this is part one, there's more coming. 

And while it may seem complicated at first,

this kind of linking is quite straightforward when you slow down

and you think about it.

You'll notice that lots of small and very common words start with

vowels, prepositions, articles, conjunctions.

These are all great places to start

practising linking and connected speech.

Remember to practise with your ears by imitating and copying

a native English speaker. This is a really great way to improve

your linking sounds and your natural expression.

Today we are going to concentrate on

consonant to consonant linking.

Small lake.

So here we have a word that ends in the consonant sound

and the word following also starts in the same consonant sound

so it makes sense to pull together these sounds right

so that they become one, it's much easier.

Small lake.

There's no pause there at all, no break in the sound.

It's just one continuous sound.

Small lake.

I went to Japan.

Went to.

I went to Japan.

Do you like my stylish shirt?

Stylish shirt.

Do you like my stylish shirt?

Now this all seems pretty straightforward, right?

Consonant followed by the same consonant.

You can push them together and make the sound flow quickly

without pausing between those two sounds.

Now there are some consonants that can link to different

consonants which is a little unusual but when that happens

the sound changes. It creates a different consonant sound.

So let's look at an example.

Would you buy it?

Now let's speed that up a bit to regular pace.

Would you buy it?

So can you hear that /dʒ/ sound in there?

Would you.

Now if we just say would by itself there's no /dʒ/ sound.

There's also no /j/ in you either, right?

So the D at the end of the word would

can link to the you at the start of you but when we do this

it creates a new sound. The /dʒ/ sound.

So actually in any situation where one word ends in a /d/

and it's followed by a word that starts with a /u/,

often it can combine to create the /dʒ/ sound.

Would and you, would you.

Could you?

Should you?

Did you?

Had you?

Do you?

Do you wanna?

So as the auxiliary verb do reduces down

to just the /d/ sound here

we can also link it just like the other examples to say:

Do you wanna?

And check out how that too reduces down to the schwa sound.

Instead of too, it's

The schwa is another important feature of fast connected speech

in English, in spoken English.

So if you need to check out what the schwa is,

maybe have a reminder, this whole lesson here focuses on

the schwa sound. It's a good one to watch next.

Now there is another exception that we need to talk about here.

Those times when a word ends in a /t/ sound

and it's also followed by the /j/ sound.

So there is a change in these sounds when we link them together.

The sounds /t/ and /j/

together can create /ʈʃ/

Did she hit you?

Don't you have one?

Don't you becomes don't you.

Don't you have one?

Didn't you?

Can't you?

See? There are so many really common word combinations there,

ones that you can definitely start practising