You all know that native speakers have sound patterns that are different from what we speak and they are unique and they’re different from a textbook or written English. If you still find it difficult to follow a native speaker or watch English movies on television without subtitles or unable to follow radio commentaries or news of native English speakers then the idea of learning these patterns is to make it easier for you to understand them.
There are about three patterns that are identified as the sound patterns of the native speakers and they are:
Pattern 1
Pattern 1 is about using contractions, which are quite common. Some examples of contractions are “would not” becomes “wouldn’t”, “cannot” becomes “can’t”.
Pattern 2
Pattern 2 is about weak forms. Some structural words in their sentences are often pronounced as their “weak form”. For instance, “to” and “you” are pronounced as long “u” sound. However, the native speakers might not pronounce it with a long “u” sound but a shorter “uh” form. That pronunciation to us may sound a little difficult to recognize and understand.
Pattern 3
Pattern 3 is about the phonetic links. Any word that starts with a vowel gets itself connected to the previous word and makes it harder for the listener to understand each word distinctly. An example of this could be, “He is interested in it” will be pronounced as “hezinterestedinit”.
These are a few patterns that could help you understand their slang and work better on improving your listening skills to do better and score well in your IELTS exam. These patterns are simple but are very effective and can help you not just in exam per se but also in communicating with native speakers and responding to them.
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