1
Name the words that can take a weak form
Fewer than fifty of them. The 43 that appear on the passage in the lab are printed with the shape each one takes in an ordinary sentence, and the common small words that keep their shape are named.
Course · English
Listening
People learning English say it is spoken too fast. Mostly it is not. Fewer than fifty small grammar words are two in every five of a page, and most of them change shape when said. Most of the rest announces where it begins. Two more lessons count how the small words are written when they are said short, and where the gaps between words go. Every count is made on a page you can read.
speech has no gaps in it
41.3% of a page is a few dozen small words
and most of them get squashed
82.3% of the rest start strong
so a strong part means a new word
What this course is about
- Subject
- English
- Lessons
- 4
- Format
- Interactive
Overview
What you will be able to do
By the end you can look at a written sentence and say which parts of it will be hard to hear, and why.
2
Say what share of a page they are
387 of 936 words on the passage in the lab, which is 41.3%, counted in your browser.
3
Find where a word begins
Most words that carry meaning start on their strong part — 390 of the 474 marked on the same page, which is 82.3%. The ones where that fails are a group: believe, return, again.
4
Write the full form behind a contraction
N't is not, 'll is will, and 's and 'd have more than one answer that you sort by the word that follows.
5
Say which kind of text contracts
In 1,975 words of a play, 22 of 36 not words are written n't, which is 61.1%. In the novel passage it is 1 of 13, and in two modern documents 0 of 10.
6
Mark where words run together
Where a word ends in a consonant and the next begins with a vowel, the consonant goes with the next word: 124 of 740 places on the passage, which is 16.8%.
Lessons
4 lessons
The small words first, because they are the larger share and the quicker win. Then where the other words begin, where the small words go when they are said short, and how the gaps between words fill.
Why It Sounds Too FastTwo words in five on a printed page come from a short list of small words, and most of them change shape when spoken.Not marked
Where a Word BeginsFour content words out of five start on their strong part, and that is the clue.Not marked
Where the Small Words WentIn a play, six in ten of the not words are written n't; in a novel and in two modern documents, almost none.Not marked
Why Words Run TogetherWhere a word ends in a consonant and the next begins with a vowel, a speaker says the consonant with the next word, and the gap you see on the page is not there.Not marked
Recommended background
No other course is needed. This one is about sound rather than form, so a reader who wants help hearing English before anything else is not held up by the rest. Word Stress helps with the second lesson, because it scores the rules for where the strong part falls.
Practice suggestions
Take the printed list away with you. The small words on it are the same in a news report, a film and a conversation, and the list is the part of this course that does work outside it.
Use it on something you are already listening to. The voice that reads these pages is a reading voice, so the course is only useful when you carry it to a person talking.
Do not try to catch every word. The course is partly an argument that trying to is the wrong method, and that listening for the strong parts is what a native listener actually does.
What it does not cover
Teaching you to make the sounds. The pages read themselves aloud with your browser’s voice, which is a reading voice and not a model to copy. This course tells you what to listen for; it does not correct your own speech, and nothing on a page could.
Accents. The words that take a weak form are much the same everywhere English is spoken, but what they turn into is not. The shapes printed here are the ones a speaker from the south of England uses; the first lesson says what an American speaker does differently. The strong parts and the sounds at the edges of words come from an American dictionary, and nothing here measures the difference.
Speech beyond what a page can show. Sounds also change where they meet in ways this course does not count, and a printed passage cannot say how often a speaker does any of it. The last lesson counts where words meet; it does not count what is said there.
Which part of a word is the strong one. The second lesson counts how often it comes first. The rules that find it, by the class of the word and by its ending, are scored in Word Stress.