#5 All Ears English - 3 Strategies for Understanding Natives When They Speak Fast

I choose a topic called "3 Strategies for Understanding Natives When They Speak Fast." Because I think it's very useful for English learners.

Followings are the 3 strategies:

1) Pay attention to the “flap” or the “tap”: Americans use this sound to replace a T sound when it comes in the middle of a word. Americans pronounce “better” by replacing the T sound with a D sound. Another example would be the word “matter” or “water” or “city” or “meeting.” If you are expecting natives to pronounce it with the D sound then you will be able to recognize the word quickly when you need to.

2) Expect natives to use “trimming”: When Americans speak quickly they cut out the sounds in longer words. It happens with “L” in “love,” “N” in “no” and “R” in “Reed”. Americans drop out the middle vowel when they speak fast so instead of saying “family” and pronouncing every syllable they say “fam-ly.” We also see this pattern in words like “average” and “bravery” and “camera.”

3) Expect natives to push all of their words together: They don’t pronounce every single word separately. The words get linked together. If a word ends with a consonant and the second word begins with a vowel like “an easy test” the native speaker would link together the first two words in the sentence.

Opinion:

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