These are 4 mistakes you might be making when you link your words in Connected Speech.
It may be because the sound is difficult to articulate because it isn't in your first language.
Or perhaps it is, but it's made differently.
Or perhaps it is, but how we spell things and how we say things can be different.
Or perhaps it is, but you might be hearing a reduced form of the word.
If you want to link your NGs, THs, Rs, or final Ss (orfen a Z sound) better, listen to this episode!
But don't take my word for it... in this episode you'll hear movie clips to represent each of the 4 mistakes in linking.
Transcripts
E007 4 Common Linking Mistakes
Bianca: [:
We're gonna talk about both of those things. So we've got four to cover. The first one. NG when one word ends in an NG, and that's really common; verbs that end in NG, ING are really common. Anything in the continuous (or the progressive) ING adjectives as well. Those are really, really common. So this is a common mistake. Number one, you're gonna see it a lot of the times.
Number two, NGS are difficult to make, first of all, because probably your language doesn't have it. So keep in mind that an NG is the tip of your tongue not doing anything. In fact, it's the back of your tongue /ŋ/ /ŋ/ /ŋ/.
Bianca: [:
If you're having trouble, grab the tip of your tongue to kind of immobilize it and then say, /ŋ /ŋ/. The back of your tongue should come up and kind of touch that soft part of your throat in the back. So /ŋ/ /ŋ/. The first thing we're gonna hear is three clips, and I want you to see if you can hear somebody say, bring.
d. We have three examples as [:
Movie clip 1: "I remember thinking, how can I bring a child into a world like this?"
Movie Clip 2: "And make sure you bring a shirt and a sweater."
Movie Clip 3: "She'll bring a very good prize."
Bianca: So three more. Watching. Watching the movie. Watching the movie, or did they say, watch in. Watch in? Are you hearing the linking with an ng, with a tongue in the back or an N with a tongue in the front.
Movie Clip 4: "And people are still watching a movie and talking about a movie" .
Movie Clip 5: "It's like watching a movie."
Bianca: And usually this happens, with a verb more often, but it could happen with an adjective that's an NG ending.
The next example we're gonna talk about is the TH.
and then we have the voiced [:
Bianca: It's just difficult, so I'm not gonna do it. We've got some examples of an unvoiced version, both of, of, the word /ʌv/, but often we reduce it to /əv/, both of, both of.
Movie Clip 6: "It just hurts the both of us. "
Movie Clip 7: "Who was your employer that could be helpful to both of us."
Movie Clip 8: "You see the other day you made some allusions, both of you."
Bianca: Next one. We've got a voiced version, this case in, in a verb at, because it's at the end. So breathe, breathe in, and breathe out.
Movie Clip 9: "Breathe in and breathe out."
Movie Clip 10: "Breathe in and breathe out and come sit down."
: "Breathe in [:
Movie Clip 12: "Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours."
Movie Clip 13: "We will then crush the rebellion with one swift stroke."
Movie Clip 14: "I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it."
Bianca: The next common mistake is an R. Again, one main reason is a lot of languages don't use the same kind of R as us. Some languages don't have really an R, they have something more akin to an L.
h in the back of the throat. [:
So here we're gonna use the word R and then you, and we're gonna listen to an American saying it, so you're gonna hear that final R.
Movie Clip 15: Harvey. Where are you? Where are you?
There are a lot of accents and dialects that the R is kind of dropped, and we call that non-rhotic. So for some non-rhotic speakers, they're gonna drop that R sometimes, and it might depend on what's before or after that.
Movie Clip 16: "Are you interested in his character or his, uh, social circle?"
Movie Clip 17: What are you talking ?"
of the word, but often that [:
Movie Clip 18: 'Does it make you feel responsible for Harvey? Dan's current predicament?"
Movie Clip 19: " Well, it don't hurt 'em either, does it?" Those are four common mistakes that I really want you to master because they're A really difficult to do. And if you can master them, that's amazing. And number two, it's because these are common mistakes and we use these sounds all the time. I don't want you to make a mistake because you can't do it.
Bianca: I want you to choose how you speak because your voice is your choice, as you know.
