Do you ever feel like native speakers are skipping sounds or even swallowing words when they talk?

You're not alone.

I hear this all the time from my students who have been studying English and speaking English for many years.

In this video, I will explain to you why fast English speech can be difficult to understand and I will give you some tips to help you deal with this challenge.

We will also listen to some native speakers who are speaking fast to analyze their speech patterns and this will help you understand fast speech and feel more confident in conversations with native speakers.

One of the main reasons that you have a hard time understanding native speakers is because of linking.

Linking is connecting words.

Sometimes native speakers combine words so that a whole sentence sounds like one long word.

You're not imagining it.

Linking happens with groups of words that are called thought groups.

Thought groups are words that naturally belong together.

They form a thought.

In general, it's very common not to pause inside a thought group.

Let's look at this sentence.

You should have told me about it.

That's a simple sentence.

It's natural to say all of it in one breath without pausing.

We stress told and we reduce everything else.

Repeat after me.

You should have told me about it.

Or in the negative.

You shouldn't have told me about it.

You shouldn't have told me about it.

All these little words are connected.

And let's look at a sentence that has two thought groups.

If you told me about the issue, I would have helped you fix it.

This sentence has two clauses.

It's longer and it makes sense to pause.

The natural place to pause is between the two thought groups.

But it depends on how fast the person is speaking.

Some people may not pause at all.

Let's look at the sentence again.

If you told me about the issue, I would have helped you fix it.

In this sentence, we stress told, issue, helped, and fix.

Here is my first tip for understanding fast speech.

When all the words are joined together, listen for the key words.

If you understand told, issue, helped, and fix, you will understand what the person means.

To sound like a native speaker, I suggest that you practice speaking this way too.

Here is one rule or we can call one pattern of linking.

The final consonant of one word is linked to the initial vowel of the following word.

For example, we don't say first of all.

We say first of all.

First of all.

The T of first and the O of of are combined.

First of.

First of.

And the F in this case changes to a V sound, a V.

That's the only time in English where the F actually sounds like a V.

First of.

First of.

And then that V and the A of all are also linked.

Of all.

Of all.

And now let's say all three words as one word.

First of all.

First of all.

Let's look at some more examples of what linking sounds like.

Let's look at get up late.

That sounds exactly as get a plate.

So we say, did you get a plate?

Or did you get a plate?

Same sound because of linking.

Let's look at picked out.

We don't say, I picked out a new dress.

We link and we say picked out.

And why do we say picked and not picked?

Why is it a T sound?

Because the K, the previous consonant is voiceless.

And when we have a voiceless consonant, the ED sounds like a T.

Let's listen to native speakers saying picked out.

I picked out a book.

I picked out a book.

I picked out a book.

And I would read the books that I had just picked out.

And I would read the books that I had just picked out.

Repeat after me.

I would read the books that I had just picked out.

What have you got picked out for?

What have you got picked out for?

Repeat after me.

What have you got picked out for us?

Let's look at another example.

I worked out yesterday.

Nobody speaks that way.

We combine the words.

We link them.

I worked out yesterday.

I worked out yesterday.

Worked out sounds very similar to worked out.

Worked out.

The T and the D are a little bit different, but it sounds very similar.

Worked out.

Worked out.

Let's listen to some more linked speech.

Pay attention to how they're linking.

I guess you just told me we could have figured it out.

I guess you just told me we could have figured it out.

He said, you should have told me.

We could have figured it out.

The sentence we could have figured it out contains six words, but it sounds like one long word.

There is no pause.

We could have figured it out.

Remember, we stress the key words and we reduce and combine all of the other words.

We stress told and figured and out.

You should have told me.

We could have figured it out.

Let's practice a bit more.

Let's change some of the key words.

Repeat after me.

You should have spoken to me.

We could have worked it out.

We stress spoken and worked and out.

Worked out is a phrasal verb, so we stress both of those words.

And by the way, we stress out more.

In phrasal verbs, we generally stress the second word more.

Let's practice with another sentence.

You should have emailed it to me.

I could have printed it out.

You say it.

You should have emailed it to me.

Some people say printed it out, but most people say printed it out.

Printed it out.

Repeat after me.

I could have printed it out.

Let's practice with one more sentence.

You should have warned me.

I would have turned it off.

You say it.

You should have warned me.

I would have turned it off.

Let's listen to another native speaker.

Let's listen to how quickly she said, you should have told me that.

You should have told me that.

The have got reduced.

It almost completely disappeared.

But we do hear should and told clearly.

Listen again.

You should have told me that.

When words are connected like that, it can be very challenging to understand what native speakers are saying.

So, what's the solution?

Listening practice will help you a lot.

This is how I suggest that you practice listening.

When you watch TV shows or films or videos, watch them without captions to train your ears to listen to English.

But this is important.

But when you hear something that you don't understand, rewind and listen again.

But this time, turn on the captions to read what they just said.

You will sometimes find yourself saying, oh, that sounded like one long word, but it's actually six separate words.

And then, of course, listen again and repeat what the native speaker is saying.

And by doing this on a regular basis, you will train your ear to understand linked words.

Let's learn a little bit more about linking patterns.

I told you that we link the final consonant to the next vowel sound.

Another rule of linking is when we have two same consonant sounds, we only pronounce one of them.

For example, we don't say good dog.

We say good dog, good dog.

We only pronounce one D, but we make the D just a little bit stronger.

Listen, good dog, good dog.

Or she's sad.

We have two S's.

We don't say she's sad.

It sounds like she's sad, she's sad.

And how do we say these two words?

You say them first.

Did you say let's a stop, or did you say let's stop, let's stop.

Don't add an extra sound between those two S's.

Let's stop.

And if you're speaking quickly, black cat can even sound like black cat, black cat.

So remember, if the final consonant of one word is the same sound as the initial consonant of the next word, we only pronounce it once.

Let's listen to some native speakers linking consonants between two words.

We don't say it's special.

We say it's special, it's special.

Another reason that you have a hard time understanding native speakers is related to dropped and reduced consonants.

Consonants often disappear in connected speech.

I'm not referring to silent letters as in knife or climb or doubt.

We often don't pronounce the initial H in pronouns such as he or his.

We often say it's his house instead of it's his house.

Repeat after me.

It's his house.

Is that his car?

Did he go?

Did he do it?

Let's listen to the way native speakers are reducing the H in he.

And what did he say?

Repeat after me.

What did he?

And what did he say?

And what did he say?

So, what did he find out?

Repeat after me.

So, what did he find out?

What did he call it?

Repeat after me.

What did he call it?

And sometimes, what did he even sounds like what he, what he.

So many of the little sounds are reduced.

Let's listen.

He said, Sabaya called me.

Really?

What'd he say?

He said, Sabaya called me.

Really?

What'd he say?

What'd he say?

What'd he say?

What'd he say?

Similarly, the H in her often disappears.

I know her becomes I know her.

I love her becomes I love her.

I love her.

How do you feel about her?

I love her.

Did you talk to her becomes did you talk to her?

Did you talk to her?

You say it.

To learn to understand fast English speech, my advice is listen to podcasts at a slower speed.

Podcasts are a great way to practice listening.

And did you know that you can slow them down to train your ear?

If you slow them down, you will be able to hear those reduced sounds, the reduced pronouns, and the reduced words.

That's a great way to practice.

And to learn all the ways that native speakers link words, make sure that you get my course, the American Accent Course.

It teaches you all of the most important rules of linking that you need to know for a standard American accent.

And of course, you will learn all the rules of the difficult American vowel sounds, consonant sounds, word stress, syllable stress, melody, and so much more.

Go to accurateenglish.com to get the course.

This year, I'm planning to focus a lot more on the American accent and pronunciation training in my videos.

So if you found this video helpful, please click the like button and subscribe to this channel.

There are many videos coming up that will teach you to speak English with a good, clear accent.

Thanks for watching and keep practicing.