WEAK FORMS IN ENGLISH

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If you want to understand English better and sound more natural and more like a native speaker you need to understand weak forms in English. This video looks at weak forms using British pronunciation including the most important sound - the schwa. There are many weak forms in English and we couldn't discuss them all in one short video so have a look at this link to learn about all the weak forms in English

Intermediate and advanced English lessons on our youtube channel. Brought to you by LetThemTalk language school in Paris.

TRANSCRIPT
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I'm going to say this sentence 6 times Listen and repeat. Are you ready?

TODAY is the best day of my life. - today not yesterday
Today IS the best day of my life - it is not isn't
Today is the BEST day of my life - the best not the worst
Today is the best DAY of my life. - the best day but not the best month
Today is the best day of MY life - my life not yours
Today is the best day of my LIFE

Here's my question. In those sentences how did you pronounce "of".

Listen again.

Did you get it right? If you said /ev/ then congratulations

So if we don't stress OF most English speakers will pronounce it /əv/ in everyday speech. That's right /əv/ Of course, sometimes we say OF perhaps if it appears at the end of a sentence. For example. What are you thinking of? But most of the time it's unstressed so we use the weak form /ev/ that's the schwa sound pronounced /e/ followed by a /v/ sound. So try the sentence again "Today is the best day of my life?"

In English there are a few common words that have strong and weak forms. OF is one of them. OF is the strong form /əv/ is the weak form. Do you know any more? You probably do. "And" has a weak form /ən/. Night n Day, Rock n roll. Who says rock and roll? Nobody. So some very common short words such as, FOR, TO, A and many auxiliary verbs have weak forms. . Knowing them will help your speaking and your listening. You need to be able to recognize weak forms in a sentence if you want to understand native English speakers. And if you want to sound fluent when speaking you need to know them too. I'll leave a link in the description with a list of all the weak forms. They are important so do learn them. here is just one more example.

FROM. That's the strong form but in most situations English speakers don't say that instead they'll stay the weak form FRM Like most weak forms it has a schwa sound /e/. for example He comes from far away. If FROM is at the end of the sentence you would use the strong form because you are stressing it. Where are you from. But did you notice that in that sentence altough FROM was stressed but we used the weak form of ARE which is /e/ Where are you from?

OK that's it I'm gonna have a cup of tea and read a book now. So it's goodbye from me. .And see you next time.