Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about some common contractions and I'm also going to introduce their pronunciations. Hopefully, this can help you sound a bit more natural. I've divided today's lesson into a few key groups. Let's take a look at each group individually and then talk about some more general contractions.
Let's get started with the first group. The first group I've classified as the "to be" contractions. These are "am," "are" and "is" related contractions, especially when the subject is a person. Let's review "I am" contracts to "I'm." "I am," "I'm." "You are" contracts to "you're." Remember, this is Y-O-U-‘-R-E, not Y-O-U-R. That's the possessive form, "your." "We are" contracts to "we're." "We're" is the pronunciation. "They are" contracts to "they're." "They are," "they're." "He is" contracts to "he's." "She is" contracts to "she's." "It is" contracts to "it's." This one has an apostrophe, "it's." No apostrophe is the possessive form, something belonging to an object, "its." And finally, "that is" contracts to "that's." So, here's our first group.
Let's move on to a little bit more challenging perhaps using "would" to make the contracted form. Also, I'll talk about the past tense and the negative form here too. First, "I would" contracts to "I'd." "You would" contracts to "you'd." You'll see we just keep this "d" sound here. "I'd," "you'd," "we would" becomes "we'd." "They would" becomes "they'd." "He would" becomes "he'd." "She would" becomes "she'd." "It would" becomes "it'd." This one's tricky, "it'd." "It'd" is the pronunciation. "That would" becomes "that'd." "That'd be crazy," "That'd be impossible." "It'd" be good if," "it'd be good." "That'd," "it'd." These are all the present positive forms of contractions with "would."
However, when you make a negative form you just need to use "wouldn't" to do that. So, "wouldn't" is "would" plus "not." When you attach "wouldn't" to your subject you don't need to make any change to the sound of the subject, just make the change here with the "not" part. So, "I wouldn't," "you wouldn't," "we wouldn't," "they wouldn't," "he wouldn't," "she wouldn't," "it wouldn't," "that wouldn't." There's no change to the subject pronunciation, we're only making the change here. So, that's for negative.
When you want to make the past tense, when you want to use "would" with a past tense expression, we just use "would" plus "have." I'll put this here. So, "would" plus "have" becomes "would've." "Would've" becomes the pronunciation here. So, again, there's no actual change to the subject--I mean the pronunciation of the subject of the sentence, we just attach "would've." So, this would become "I would've," "you would've," "we would've," "they would've," "he would've," "she would've," "it would've," "that would've." So, we're just changing this part here, "would" plus "have" to create the past tense. So, this is it may be a key point with "would" and the same thing applies to "could" and "should." So, with "could" and "should," we use the same rule. So, "I couldn't," "I could've," for example. "I shouldn't," I should've," same thing there. So that's a quick overview of the pronunciation of contractions with "would" and a little bit about "could" and "should," as well, with the past form and the negative form too.
So let's continue onto the next group which uses will, will. So first, we have "I will" which we contracted to "I'll." Next is "you will" which becomes "you'll." "We will" becomes "we'll." "They will" becomes "they'll," they'll. "He will" becomes "he'll," he'll. "She will" "she'll," she'll. "It will," tricky, becomes "it'll," it'll, it'll. That one is tricky, "it'll." And then finally, "will not," will not, remember, in the negative form, will not is "won't." And maybe one more, just to match the others, "that'll," that'll, "that will," that will. "That will" becomes "that'll." So, these are some common contractions with will. Please be careful, especially with this "it" and "that." Those might be difficult to say, "it'll," "that'll."
Okay, now though, let's go on to kind of some general ones. I just made a big group of general sounds to consider. In American English, these are kind of the pronunciations we use in everyday speech.
So, let's look at the first one, "want to." "Want to" becomes "wanna." What do you wanna do? Wanna, wanna. "What do you want to do?" becomes "What do you wanna?" Similarly, "going to" becomes "gonna." There's very soft N sound, "gonna," gonna, I'm gonna, gonna. And, sometimes in fast speech, we drop the G sound, "I'm /onna/," I'm /onna/. "I'm gonna" becomes "I'm /onna/," as well, okay? Cannot, "cannot" becomes "can't," can't, I can't, I can't. Cannot sounds quite formal. It's not incorrect, but it sounds quite formal.
Next one, "let us," let us, usually, we say "let's," let's. So to do something together, a suggestion. And let me, "let me" becomes "lemme." Lemme borrow your pen. Lemmme use your computer, lemme, lemme. "Give me," similar to lemme, becomes "gimme." Gimme a minute. Gimme your lunch, for example, gimme. Gimme and lemme, we use those.
Okay, the next, this is a little bit more broad. When you need to use the present perfect tense, we have... this...these two patterns are quite common. The subject, this is very simple, "subject + have" or subject + have…+ has, sorry. So "subject + have" or "subject + has." So for example, "(I / you / we / they) have," "(he / she / it) has," for example. So when the subject is, for example, "I," when we attach "have" to this, we just make it a /ve/ sound, "I've / we've / you've / they've." There's a V sound. I've been to France, you've eaten that, they've never been here, for example. It's this /ve/ sound, "I've."
However, when we use "has," because the subject is "he / she / it," we make an S sound. So for example, "he's" just becomes S, "he's." He's never been there, she's never eaten that, it's never been found, for example. Just a simple S sound. But when we use "have," it's a /ve/ sound, "I've," I've. So please try to use that.
Okay, onto the next group. Again, some kind of similar points. They just sort of change depending on the subject. First one, "had not," had not, so I had not heard this news, for example. This becomes "hadn't," hadn't, hadn't, hadn't. Similarly, "has not," has not, so again a present perfect example, but this is a negative, "has not" is "hasn't," hasn't. Here, "have not," again, a present perfect example, this time a negative, "haven't." I haven't finished my homework yet. I haven't finished teaching this lesson yet. So hasn't / haven't / hadn't, this is a past-perfect expression.
Okay, good, let's go on to the last group. Again, quite similar expressions with some very small changes. So here, I have "somebody is / has." I have a slash here because we use the same pronunciation for both of these. So, "somebody is" and "somebody has," we use the same pronunciation which is "somebody's," somebody's. So, "somebody's in the room" is "somebody is in the room." Somebody has taken my bag, for example. Somebody's taken my bag. Somebody's in the room. Both of these use that S pronunciation, "somebody's."
So how do you know the difference? You have to listen for grammar, one, and just context as well. So somebody's in the room, grammatically, "somebody has in the room" is not correct. That's an incorrect sentence for grammar. Therefore, we know the correct sentence is "somebody is in the room." Somebody has taken my bag. Somebody's taken my bag. I know "somebody is taken my bag" is grammatically incorrect, so my brain therefore applies "has" in that situation. So we need to think about this when we're listening as well. It takes practice, I think, to get the hang of it.
So similar here, just as we did with "somebody," we use the same rule for "someone" and "something." So "someone's," "someone is" becomes "someone's" and "someone has," also, "someone's." Same thing with "something." "Something is" and "something has" both becomes "something's." Something's not right. Something's gone wrong. So we use the same pronunciation, but these are two different grammar points, so you need to listen to the grammar of the whole sentence. Something's gone wrong. "Gone" is the past participle form. Something's gone wrong, so I know it must be "something has gone wrong." Something is wrong. "Wrong" is just an adjective. Something is wrong. I know, therefore, it must be "is," not "has." So listen for the grammar of the sentence, overall, to find the correct meaning.
All right, but those are quite a few common contractions. I hope that they were helpful for you and don't forget to review this part with could and should as well, this would here. Of course, if you have any questions or if there are some other contractions that you have questions about, like how to make them or the pronunciation, please let me know in the comment section of this video. Of course, if you have other questions or other feedback, please feel free to let us know about that too. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again, soon. Bye-bye!

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