Pronunciation: Assimilation of /s/

Tim's back in his pronunciation workshop. This time he's finding out what happens when one word ends in /s/ and the next begins in /j/ - and he's feeling ready for a snack...

TRANSCRIPT
Tim
Hi. I'm Tim and this is my Pronunciation Workshop. Here I'm going to show you how English is really spoken. Come on, let's go inside. You know how they say that British people are obsessed with the weather? Well I’m feeling under it today. Under the weather – that's an expression which means 'I'm not feeling very well'. Excuse me! What do you say in your language when someone sneezes? Do you know what we say in British English? Let's ask the people of London.

Voxpops
Bless you.
Bless you.
Bless you.
Bless you.

Tim
Thank you! Bless you! Now the word bless ends in /s/ and ‘you’ begins with /j/. But what happens to the /s/ sound when we put the two words together? Watch and listen again.

Voxpops
Bless you.
Bless you.
Bless you.
Bless you.

Tim
In fluent speech, when a /s/ sound is followed by a /j then the /j/ changes to a /ʃ/ sound, and this change also happens if the next word begins with the /ʃ/ sound itself. So 'bless you' becomes 'bleshyou' and 'this shirt' becomes 'thishirt'. This is an example of assimilation. And don’t forget this can also happen if the /s/ is followed by a /t/, because as you might remember from a previous video, the /t/ sound disappears between two consonants. Here are some more examples.

Examples
Can you just shut the door please?!
This yacht is beautiful.
Don’t worry, that’s usual.
He always makes you feel good.

Tim
Right, so you’ve heard the examples, and now it’s your turn. Listen and repeat.

Examples
Can you just shut the door please?!
This yacht is beautiful.
Don’t worry, that’s usual.
He always makes you feel good.

Tim

[fatituta]

I really adore British accent, it’s wonderful

[Leckelicious]

Here in Brazil we say "Saúde". Saúde! E parabéns pelo canal - todos vocês! (Congratulations on the channel - to all of you!)

[DeivitMV]

Thank you very much for these videos. I never miss an episode of your pronunciation workshop. It's really useful.

[dipo]

Thank you, I didn't know that, more assimilation videos please!! :)

[artemedutech]

0:25 Tim has gone inside and his hair has turned to be shorter than in the intro :)

[benjaminestrada]

I really like your class thanks a lot. Greetings from Mexico

[thephoenixchant]

What happens in the sentence "the leaders stay"? Is the sentence pronnounced with only one single "s" as in /theliderstei/ or still with two s? The leaderS [pause] Stei?

It's on a song and don't know how to pronnounce it correctly. Not sure if when contrastive the assimilation should be skipped. I"m talking about s + s

Thank you very much :)

[mngirl]

can you teach us how to pronounce "of" in the natural way? (ex. one of the)

[andrealorenaretamozo]

we say " salud" in Spanish .By the way, I am from Argentina

[ambar]

What is that big black machine behind Tim?

[라김래]

Hi.how are you? i really love your lessons they're very helpful, can i ask something if you don't mind
can you show us how to pronounce the "R" sound and thank you again

[xiayu]

Some body tell me how can I hear: He always at 2:35

[kllkll]

bless you. As we say (yarhamakom Allah

[motivationquotesst]

Do you have video about assimilation /z/ + /j/

[KRVq]

Would you tell me, how about the pronunciation - I miss you. Is there an assimilation here? We always argue about it.

[ilya]

I wonder is this pronunciation just for British people or others english speaker too??

[hoangkimviet]

The words I learnt from this video:
- Adjectives: Toasty
:-0

[Bobrister_]

We say будь здоров wich sounds like [bud' zdorov]

[khoatruongthucang]

Excuse me! This pronuciation is just only British people??? How about the pronunciation of American??