Way back in Episode #7, Tim introduced you to the chewing gum accent, where native and very advanced speakers of English pronounce common words and phrases in ways that barely resemble their written forms. Some of these pronunciations are ones that you already know, for example “gonna” instead of the more book-like, correct form “going to” or “prolly” instead of the full form “probably”.
Three surprising facts:
1. English speakers don’t speak fast- instead they smash spoken words and phrases together
2. Most words and phrases in English have chewing gum pronunciations
3. Each word and phrase has a spectrum of pronunciations rather than just one or two pronunciations
Listen to Episode #18 to hear real-life examples of chewing gum pronunciation so you can start understanding spoken English like a champ.
One of my Ukrainian students is living in Houston now, and she often talks about very curious cases of Texan English. We have a laugh, I express my deep sympathy for her ears, but can’t help her much since I don’t get it myself. It reminds me of a lively market, where sellers are making a pitch for their produce. And I myself want to get rid of my British pronounciation of can’t, pass, dance and so on, but that seems to be as good as impossible.
Hi Elizaveta,
You might suggest to your student The Illustrated Texas Dictionary of the English Language!
https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Texas-Dictionary-English-Language/dp/0822014777/ref=sr_1_1?crid=23DOVUW8N5QW3&keywords=texas+dictionary+of+the+english+language&qid=1691637416&sprefix=texas+dictionary%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1
I must have stumbled on this book sometime in the early 1990s, maybe as a result of my mom’s cousin who lives in Texas. I remember reading it as a child and working hard to decipher what the weird spellings meant in my Midwest English. For example, the “Heidi, yawl!” on the cover would be “Howdy you all”, “howdy” itself being a very colloquial form of “how do you do”, which is really no longer said.
Perhaps your student could even deduce some rules of thumb from what she finds in the book.
I like such books, they’re really curious. I told my student about it, I don’t think linguistic peculiarities are right up her alley. She’s struggling with loads of different accents, but I think it’s getting better. Her humanitarian visa as a Ukranian refugee for 2 years is falling due in a year. Is there any discussion in the US concerning its prolongation?