6. 🗣️ Applied Phonetics in Daily Life

• How to improve your British accent:

  • Focus on key sounds like the post-vocalic /r/ (not pronounced unless followed by a vowel), the schwa vowel $/ə/$ (the most common sound), and the long vowel /a:/ (in words like car, father).

• Practical tips for sounding more natural:

  • The importance of function words (prepositions, articles, conjunctions) being pronounced in their weak forms (e.g., to $/tə/$, for $/fə/$, and $/ən/$).

• Real pronunciation in connected speech:

  • Linking: Joining the end of one word to the beginning of the next (e.g., *an apple $\to$ an apple$).

  • Elision: The disappearance of sounds (e.g., the /t/ in postman or last night).

  • Assimilation: One sound is affected by the following one (e.g., ten pounds sounds like tem pounds).

• Reductions: gonna, wanna (explained for learners):

  • Explain that they are not mistakes, but natural and fast ways of speaking, though primarily used in an informal context.

  • gonna (going to), wanna (want to), gotta (got to/have to).