Introduction
Learn how you can make your pronunciation and accent better by reducing the sound of in, an, and in a new English Express episode—a podcast from English Plus Podcast Network.
Interactive Transcript
Transcript
[00:00:00] Danny: Welcome to a new English Express episode. In this episode, we will talk about reduced sounds. So it’s about pronunciation and accent. Exciting, no? And we will focus in this episode on reducing the sounds of In, an, & and you can find the transcript on my website, englishpluspodcast.com. And now, without further ado, let’s talk about how we can reduce the sounds of, In, An, & And.
[00:00:34] So let’s start first with In. Now in is a preposition. You all know that when we say something, it’s in the bag. What’s wrong with that? Nothing’s wrong, of course. And remember, as I usually say in our pronunciation and accent episodes, it is not wrong to pronounce them in their full pronunciation. You don’t have to reduce them.
[00:00:52] It is not obligatory. It is not something that is wrong, not at all. But if you want to sound more natural, you will need to reduce the sounds of these small words. Now, for example here, I just said it’s in the bag now. Unless you are trying to stress that it’s in the bag. I told you a thousand times and you keep asking me where is it?
[00:01:15] And I’m telling you, it’s in the bag. Now here, of course, you would want to pronounce IN in its full pronunciation, but usually we don’t do that. We say it’s in the bag. It’s ‘n the bag. So it’s not, it’s in, we don’t stop and then say in, it’s in the bag, it’s ‘n. You see here, we don’t stress the E. We say it’s ‘n the bag.
[00:01:38] It’s in the bag. What’s in it? Not what’s in it, right? What’s in it? So that’s how you reduce in. Let me give you a couple more examples. I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll be back ‘n a minute. You see, I kind of dropped the E completely. I said I’ll be back in a minute. Back in, back ‘n a minute. But remember, as I always say, don’t stop.
[00:01:59] Don’t stop by saying, for example, I’ll be back ‘n…. a minute. That will ruin the whole thing. You should say it all together. You should liaise it. You should connect it all together to sound natural. If you stop, it’s going to sound very strange and you don’t wanna do that. If you’re still having problems with this, it’s better to give it the full pronunciation.
[00:02:18] If you can’t do it yet, give it the full pronunciation when you practice and you can reduce the sound properly and say it all together at the same time, just do it this way. It will sound a lot more natural, and it will give your pronunciation and accent an edge. I’ll be back in a minute. This movie, who’s in it?
[00:02:35] Who’s ‘n it? Not who’s in it, who’s ‘n it? He’s in America. He’s ‘n America. He’s in Africa, he’s in Europe. He’s in, he’s ‘n. You see that? It’s not, he’s in, he’s ‘n, he’s in. It’s just like pronouncing the N. The N, not in, not the whole thing. Since we talked about in AN becomes pretty clear because it’s kind of the same.
[00:02:57] We can say, for example, he is an American, but nobody says he is an American unless you are trying to stress on the fact that he is an American. Can’t you understand that? He is an American, but if you are not doing that, you’d better reduce the sound of AN. He’s an American. He’s ‘n American. I got an A in English.
[00:03:21] I got ‘n A in English. I’m saying here I got an A in English, but have you ever heard anybody say it this way before I got an A in English? Nobody says it this way. I got ‘n A in English. ‘n A in English. See, you might hear ‘n A in English. What’s that ‘n A in English? ‘n A English. It’s an A in English. He got an F in Algebra.
[00:03:41] He got an F in Algebra.. He got ‘n F in Algebra. AN and IN reduce sounds. We had an accident. We had ‘n accident, not we had an accident. We don’t stop to say, AN we had an accident. We won an orange.. We won ‘n orange.. He didn’t have an excuse. He didn’t have ‘n excuse. I’ll be there in an instant.
[00:04:01] I’ll be there in ‘n instant. In an instant, but not in an instant. I’ll be there in ‘n instant. It’s an easy mistake to make. It’s ‘n easy, it’s an easy, not, it’s an easy, it’s ‘n easy mistake to make. So that was about AN. And finally, we’re going to talk about AND. What about the famous bread and butter? Well, when you wanna say bread and butter, again, if you wanna stress it, fine, just go ahead and say, and in its full pronunciation.
[00:04:30] But we don’t usually do that. Right? We say bread and butter. Bread ‘n butter. And again, don’t do it this way. Don’t stop. Okay. Bread and butter. Coffee with cream and sugar. Cream ‘n sugar. It’s not cream and sugar. It’s cream ‘n sugar. No lemon ‘n sugar. Of course, we’re not talking about coffee here. Just don’t get me wrong.
[00:04:49] Maybe we’re talking about tea here, right? No. Lemon and sugar. And some more cookies? ‘N some more cookies? It’s not. And some more cookies. ‘N some more cookies? I’m asking you, would you like some more cookies? “N some more cookies? They kept going back and forth, back ‘n forth what is back and forth?
[00:05:05] It’s back and forth, but we don’t say back and forth unless we are stressing it, but we don’t. We don’t usually do that. We say they kept going back ‘n forth. We watched it again and again, again ‘n again. It’s not again and again. He did it over and over, over ‘n over, over and over. Now we don’t say over and over.
[00:05:26] He did it over ‘n over. We learned by trial and error. Trial ‘n error. What is trial ‘n error? Trial and error. So trial and error. You might just think that you are listening to one word. It’s not actually, it’s three words, trial and error. But here because we link it, because we reduce, and it sounds like one trial ‘n error.
[00:05:47] Okay, that was everything. I hope you learned some new ways to make your English pronunciation an accent much better. And trust me, if you repeat after me, if you keep practicing, your English pronunciation and accent will get much better. You will get this edge that you all want. Right? And that’ll be everything I wanted to share with you in this English Express episode.
[00:06:08] Don’t forget to visit my website, englishpluspodcast.com, and check on the great learning opportunities you can find there. All the links you need are in the description of the episode. What are you waiting for? Take your English and learning to the next level and never stop learning with English Plus.
[00:06:23] Thank you very much for listening to this episode. This is your host, Danny. I will see you next time.
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