Hi everyone, and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy, and this is our 99th episode.

I want to warn you, today's lesson is rather complex. I recommend listening to episodes 94 and

97 before listening to this one. Today, I'm going to talk some more about informal contractions.

Episode 97 was about how the words used to became useda, and episode 94 was about how could you became couldja and would you became would you.

I explained that those reduced forms are called informal contractions and that there is nothing wrong

with using them in your own speech. It is your own choice for how perfectly you want to

articulate your speech, and it should depend somewhat on your current level of pronunciation.

If native English speakers already understand you pretty well,

you can use more informal speech patterns. If native speakers are still asking you to repeat yourself

frequently, then you might choose to keep your speech closer to how the dictionary shows you to

pronounce words.

If your audience includes other non-native speakers, then you would also probably choose to

speak more formally.

The benefit of speaking informally is that you will sound more fluent to native speakers,

and your listeners will assume that you have a better command of English.

Remember, you never want your informality to cost comprehension by your listeners.

Therefore, I teach the following three-word informal contractions with caution.

Listen to the following three-word contractions.

First, uncontracted, then as a contraction.

How did you? How'd you?

Where did you?

...