Hi everyone. It's me, Mandy, and this is the American English pronunciation podcast number 13.

Today we have a fun podcast about informal contractions. Last week I taught about common contractions,

words like don't, and can't. Remember, contractions are important to use to help the rhythm of spoken English. Informal contractions are optional contractions, which are said very frequently, but rarely used in writing. Examples are words like,

Wana, gimme, lemmy. You're likely already familiar with these common informal contractions if you live in the United States. As a listener of English, you really need to be able to

understand people who use informal

contractions, and nearly every native speaker does.

It's your choice to decide to use them in your own speech or not.

Let's start with the most well-known.

Lemmy.

If you see this spelled, which you usually won't, it's spelled L-E-M-M-E, and is actually the words let plus me, lemmy. As in, let me help you with that Wana

W-A-N-N-A

W-A-N-N-A

Wana is the combination of the words want and two

I want to go to the movies

Do you want to come along?

Dano D-U-N-N-O. D-U-N-N-O. D-N-O is the combination of the words don't and no.

I don't know how to speak Japanese.

Lada and Lhasa. Lada and lotsa.

Lada and lotsa are combinations of the words lot of or lots of.

There are lots of grammar rules for English.

Kinda, K-I-N-D-A, is a combination of kind and of.

Kind-of means sort of or a little.

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