Train Your Ear: How English Really Sounds (American vs British)

One of our students — a DET candidate scoring 110 on reading and writing — messaged us after her first practice listening test: "I understood every word when I read the transcript. But when I listened to it, I couldn't catch a single sentence."

She wasn't exaggerating. We played the audio back and asked her to write what she heard. Where the speaker said "I'm gonna tell you something," she wrote nothing. She was waiting for "going to" — and it never came.

This is the most common listening problem we see, and it has nothing to do with vocabulary or grammar. It's a sound recognition problem. Native English speakers don't pronounce words the way textbooks spell them. We connect words, drop sounds, and compress phrases into shorter forms — constantly, automatically, in every conversation.

If your ear isn't trained for these changes, you'll understand English on paper but freeze when someone actually speaks to you. That gap between written English and spoken English is exactly what this lesson targets.

In this session, our teacher Sean (American English) and Arvin (British English) walk through the 10 most common sound changes in spoken English, followed by dictation exercises, linked sound drills, and three real conversations at natural speed. Both accents. No slowing down.

Watch the Full Lesson

Worksheet

Why English Sounds "Too Fast" (It's Not Speed — It's Compression)

When we work with students who say "native speakers talk too fast," the issue is almost never actual speed. It's that spoken English compresses information in ways that textbook English doesn't prepare you for.

Linguists call this connected speech — the natural modifications that happen when words flow together at conversational pace. There are three main types:

Reductions — words get shorter. "Going to" becomes "gonna." "Should have" becomes "shoulda." The full form exists in writing; the reduced form is what you actually hear.

Linking — when one word ends with a consonant and the next starts with a vowel, they fuse. "Pick it up" becomes "pi-ki-tup." Three words, one sound.

Elision — sounds disappear entirely. The T in "don't know" often vanishes. "Have to" becomes "hafta" because the vibration in the V sound drops out when your mouth moves fast.

These aren't slang. They're not lazy speech. They're standard features of spoken English that research shows can be explicitly taught — and that explicit teaching improves listening comprehension in as little as ten weeks.

The 10 Most Common Reductions

These are the ten patterns covered in the lesson. Each one appears constantly in natural speech, in both American and British English — though some sound slightly different depending on the accent.

1. Going to → Gonna

"I'm gonna tell you something." In British English, the O is slightly shorter and the rhythm shifts, but the reduction itself is the same.

2. Want to → Wanna

"I wanna help you understand." Nearly identical across both accents.

3. Got to / Have to → Gotta

"You gotta listen carefully." British speakers often keep the "have" — "you've got to" — with a clear V at the start. American speakers tend to drop straight to "gotta."

4. Kind of → Kinda

"It's kinda hard to explain." No meaningful accent difference here.

5. Don't know → Dunno

"I dunno what happened." The American version clips the front shorter. The British version stretches it slightly. Both drop "don't know" into a single compressed form.

6. Should have → Shoulda

"I shoulda told you earlier." The "have" disappears completely in both accents. British English may hold the final vowel a fraction longer.

7. Could have → Coulda

"You coulda called me." Same pattern. The "have" is gone.

8. Would have → Woulda

"I woulda helped if I knew." Identical mechanism — nearly indistinguishable between accents.

9. What are you → Whatcha / What you

"Whatcha doing later?" This is the biggest accent split. American English merges all three words into "whatcha." British English drops the R and keeps slightly more separation: "what you doing." If you're preparing for a test that uses British audio, expect the second form.

10. Let me → Lemme

"Lemme think about it." Same in both accents.

Dictation Practice: 15 Sentences at Natural Speed

This is the most important exercise in the lesson. In the video, we say 15 sentences at natural speed, alternating between American and British English. Your job is to write exactly what your ear picks up — including the reductions.

Don't correct yourself. Don't write the "proper" version. The gap between what you expect to hear and what you actually hear is precisely the gap we're closing.

Here are the 15 sentences. Try writing them from the video before checking:

1. I'm gonna be late.
2. She doesn't wanna talk about it.
3. You gotta be careful.
4. It's kinda complicated.
5. I dunno where he went.
6. I shoulda listened to you.
7. He coulda been here by now.
8. I woulda said something.
9. Whatcha thinking about?
10. Lemme help you with that.
11. I'm gonna tell him tomorrow.
12. We've gotta go now.
13. She kinda knew already.
14. I dunno if he's coming.
15. You shoulda seen his face.

Linked Sounds: When Words Fuse Together

Reductions are only half the picture. The other half is linking — what happens when one word ends with a consonant and the next word starts with a vowel. Native speakers don't pause between them. The sounds fuse, and two or three words become one continuous sound.

Your ear expects gaps between words. Those gaps don't exist in natural speech. Once you stop waiting for them, everything gets clearer.

Consonant-to-Vowel Links

Turn it off → "tur-ni-toff." Pick it up → "pi-ki-tup." Look at it → "loo-ka-tit." Think about it → "thin-ka-bow-tit." Get out of here → "ge-dow-da-veer."

Disappearing Sounds (Elision)

I don't know — the T in "don't" often vanishes. Let me see — the T in "let" softens into the M. Give me a minute — the V in "give" weakens. What do you think — "what" and "do" merge into "whadda." I have to go — "have to" becomes "hafta."

Real Conversations: Everything at Once

The final section of the lesson puts it all together — reductions, linking, and elision in three short conversations at natural speed between an American and a British speaker. This is what English actually sounds like between native speakers.

Conversation 1

"Whatcha gonna do tonight?" — "I dunno. Maybe stay home." — "You should come out with us later." — "Lemme think about it."

Conversation 2

"I gotta tell you something." — "Well, wait. What's wrong?" — "I shoulda told you earlier, but I didn't really wanna worry you." — "Just tell me."

Conversation 3

"You coulda called me." — "I know. I'm sorry." — "I woulda helped if you asked." — "I kinda wanted to handle it myself."

If you followed all three without pausing, your ear is already adjusting. If you missed chunks, that's expected — and it's exactly why repetition matters.

Why Repetition Works (and How to Practice)

In the video, Arvin talks about learning Spanish by listening to Selena. His process is a clean example of how listening acquisition actually works — and it's backed by how the brain builds phonological recognition.

The first listen, you're not trying to understand anything. You're just exposing your ear to the sound patterns of the language — the rhythm, the stress, the flow. Second listen, a few words surface. Third, phrases start connecting. By the fourth or fifth listen, whole sentences click into place without effort.

This isn't memorization. It's pattern recognition building automatically through exposure. The goal is to reach a point where "gonna" — whether from an American speaker or a British one — just means "going to" in your head without any conscious translation.

What to Do Next

If this lesson shifted how you hear English, here are three things to do now. First, try the dictation section again without looking at the answers. Second, practice the linked sounds out loud — say them fast enough that the words connect in your own mouth. Third, listen to any English podcast or video this week and try to catch the 10 reductions from this lesson in real speech.

If you're preparing for the DET, IELTS, or TOEFL and want to know exactly where your listening breaks down, our diagnostic assessment maps your specific weak points — including whether connected speech is the issue or something else entirely.