Dropped Sounds and How They Affect Listening
Silent letters, reduced syllables, and cancelled sounds galore!
We’ve probably all had that experience of trying to pronounce a word that we’ve read in English and getting the pronunciation horribly wrong. This is true whether you’ve learned English from childhood or whether you started learning it as an adult. Sometimes it’s due to the spelling (those crazy silent letters) and sometimes it’s due to the stress, but in either case, it can cause a lot of frustration.
When it comes to talking about connected speech, we also have dropped sounds or syllables and these can cause a lot of problems in understanding what we hear. The good news is that when we learn about each rule, we will start to notice it more and more in spoken English.
Let’s look at some of the most common dropped sounds in spoken English.
Reduced syllables
In some multisyllable words, unstressed syllables are reduced so much that they aren’t even pronounced at all. You probably have been corrected on some of these in your English classes over the years:
family ➡️ FAM - ly
camera ➡️ CAM - ra
chocolate ➡️ CHOC - lat
business ➡️ BIZ - ness
jewelry ➡️ JOOL - ree
probably ➡️ PROB - lee
several ➡️ SEV - ral
Here are three more lists with audio to practice these reduced syllables: list 1, list 2 & list 3
t/d deletion
When t and d are between two consonant sounds, they are often dropped. We see this in individual words like:
silent t: listen (LI - sen), often (OFF - en), and castle (CAS - ul)
silent d: sandwich (SAN - wich), handsome (HAN - sum), and grandson (GRAN - sun)
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But this doesn’t only happen inside of words, it can happen across words too. Think about phrases like: my bes(t) friend or black an(d) white.
t after n deletion
In American English, it’s common to drop the t after an n sound.
twenty sounds like twenny
internet sounds like innernet
maintenance sounds like mainnence
international sounds like innernational
advantage sounds like advannage
Pronouns
The h and th sounds are often dropped when they’re not the subject
He fixed (h)is car
She’ll call (h)er later
We’ll meet (th)em at the restaurant
You can hear it clearly throughout the song Let Her Go.
Now for some real fun, tell me if you can see a difference between these two sentences:
A: She made a mistake
B: She made him a steak
g deletion
In American English, the g sound is often dropped in -ing words.
You hear this a lot in casual speech, but you can especially hear it in songs. Think of Bob Dylan telling us that “the answer is blowin’ in the wind” or Bon Jovi’s Tommy & Gina, who are “livin’ on a prayer.”
In fact, songs are a great way to practice listening for the features of connected speech. To practice listening for dropped sounds, listen to a song and and read the lyrics. Cross out the dropped sounds. Then listen again and sing along, but make sure not to pronounce the dropped sounds. This will really drive it home
I like to use American country songs for this, as they’re often slower and you can notice the dropped sounds. Here’s an exercise I created for you with the song Whiskey Lullaby
You can check out the answers in the comments!
Have any of these dropped sounds affected your ability to understand what you’re listening to? I’d love to hear where you’ve noticed these dropped sounds!
Interested in improving your speaking and listening skills with me? Find out more!