When one word ends with a vowel sound and the next word begins with a vowel sound, fluent speakers often insert a mild consonant sound to make the sentence flow more easily. Note that in connected speech, the letter 't' often converts to a soft 'd' sound when it appears between vowels.

Little Mix’s 2016 hit Shout Out To My Ex is a song in which a woman ironically thanks her ex-boyfriend (a ' shout out to my ex') who treated her badly but allowed her to learn some important life lessons.

In the 2017 song Shape Of You, Ed Sheeran sings about being in love with his girlfriend’s shapely figure as he tells her 'I’m in love with the shape of you'. You can notice this with phrasal verbs, as in example B. When one word ends with a consonant sound and the next word begins with a vowel sound, the two words merge together with the consonant sound flowing directly into the vowel sound. Katy Perry’s 2017 song Chained To The Rhythm is about being trapped in the routine of modern life, where 'we’re all chained to the rhythm'.Ĭatenation – linking consonant sounds to vowel sounds She sings her advice to 'all the single ladies'. Other times, the two consonant sounds are similar, as in example B.īeyoncé’s 2008 song Single Ladies is dedicated to the benefits of not having a partner. The two consonants might be the same, as in example A above. When the end of one word has a similar consonant sound to the next word, fluent speakers of English usually do not pronounce the first consonant. The strong syllable, or the syllable with emphasis, is the one after the apostrophe. Here are five features of connected speech with pop songs to illustrate each point. They also give you the chance to practice connected speech as you sing along. Because they are repetitive, songs provide a great opportunity to notice links between words. Pop songs are a fun way to improve your connected speech. What does connected speech have to do with pop music? Connected speech is an effective way to do this, and pop music is a great resource for practice. It is also understandable that many learners want to sound as natural as possible when speaking. When it comes to pronunciation, the most important thing is to be clear rather than to sound like a native speaker. This is mainly because of connected speech:īoth forms are valid. Where do you live? → /wɛr/ /du/ /ju/ /lɪv/Īn English speaker who is very fluent will pronounce the sentence differently. When people are learning English, they often pronounce words as they appear in print: Colm Boyd, a materials writer and British Council teacher in Barcelona shows how attention to connected speech in pop music can help improve fluency in spoken English.

Short vowel sounds rap