Listening Skills: Cutting English Sounds into Words

Students often say that English spoken by native speakers is just too fast to understand.

I know exactly what they mean because I had the same kind of problem when I was studying French in Montreal. Even though I could understand pretty much everything in class, out on the street, I was completely lost. The surprising thing was, when people slowly repeated what they said, the words and sentences were usually quite simple.

So, the problem wasn’t vocabulary or sentence structure: it was how speed blended the words in to one long sound, and I didn’t know how to cut those sounds into “words”.

I think this is the problem my students are talking about.

Blending in English happens because of two things: the way words are stressed in sentences and the way words are constructed. In Japanese and English, important words are stressed by saying them louder or higher in pitch, but in English, stressed words are also said just a little longer than unstressed words.

This small difference makes the rhythms of Japanese and English really different. Spoken fast or slow, Japanese sentences have a steady, evenly spaced rhythm because all of the sounds, stressed and unstressed, have about the same length.

English sentences, on the other hand, are more like poly rhythms, with just a few “long” stressed words enclosed by groups of “short”, fast unstressed words on either side. In order to say the stressed words “long enough” when English is spoken quickly, native speakers say the unstressed words “twice as fast”.

But this is just one part of the problem: blending is also due to the way English words are constructed. While most Japanese words begin with consonant sounds and end with vowel sounds, many English words are the exact opposite, beginning with vowel sounds and ending with consonant sounds. This is especially the case with typically unstressed words like in, at, on, of, is, are, and, it: when these words are spoken “twice as fast” in rapid speech, they blend very easily with the words before and after.

As an English teacher, I’ve struggled to find ways to help my students learn to cut blends into words. To my knowledge, no English textbook focuses on how the sounds of words join together. So I’ve developed dictation exercises that give students practice in “cutting up” three kinds of blends that I have identified:

1. Small-Word Blends; 2. Consonant-Vowel Blends; and 3. Dropped-H Blends.

For examples of each blend, say the sentences below. It’s important to say all four sentences in exactly the same amount of time, so start off slowly, while tapping one beat for each underlined word.

a. When he got home he had a nap on a bed in the back of his house.

b. When he got home he had a nap on a bed in the back of his old house.

c. When he got home he had a nap on a small bed in the back of his old house.

d. When he got home he had a long nap on a small bed in the back of his old house.

1. Small-Word Blends are word combinations of verbs: is, was, are, were, has, have, had; prepositions: in, at, on, of, to; articles: a, an, the; or pronouns: it, he, him, her, his, hers, its.

You no doubt noticed that while the underlined stressed words set a kind of 4/4 rhythm, the smaller words before “long” “small” and “old” had to have a much tighter rhythm when these words were added.

As a result, in sentence d., “he had a long” is blended into <eeyadalong>, “on a small” to <onasmall>, and “of his old” to <uhvizold>.

2. Consonant-Vowel Blends happen when “big” information words that end with consonant sounds <s, t, p, z…> blend with “small” grammar words that begin with vowel sounds (in, at, on, of, is, are, a, an, and, it…) or dropped-h words (he, him, his, her, who, has, have, had…).

In sentence d. above, “when he” may actually sound more like <whe-nee>; “had a” like <ha-da>; “nap on” like <na-pon>; “bed in” like <be-din>; “back of” like <ba-kov>; “of his old” like <uhvi-zold>; and “old house” like <ol-douse>.

As for the reason why Consonant-Vowel Blends are so tough for Japanese listeners, my guess is that it has something to do with the usual “place” to cut English words apart – after consonants– which is the exact opposite most Japanese words are cut – after vowels.

3. Dropped-H Blends are Small Word Blends or Consonant-Vowel Blends where the first <h> sound is reduced or completely dropped.

In sentence d., “when he got home” becomes <wheneegawtome >, “he had a long” becomes <eeyadalong>, and “of his old house” becomes <uhvizoldouse>.

These blends seem to be the toughest for students to identify because in addition to decoding the Small Word Blend or Consonant-Vowel Blend, they also have to add an <h> sound.

An additional problem is that, because pronouns like he, him, his, her, who and verbs like has, have, and had provide such key pieces of information, if the <h> sounds are missing, listeners may not be able to understand anything in the sentences.

When we consider that <eeyadalong> combines two Dropped-H Blends on “he” and “had”<eeyad>, a Consonant-Vowel blend on “had a” <ya-da>, and a small word blend speeding up “had a” before the stressed word “nap”, we can appreciate the complexity of the listening process needed to understand native-spoken English.

However, in contrast to the help students get with reading, writing, and speaking skills, they are basically left on their own to develop listening skills. With few resources to choose from, students typically jump from a textbook CD to CNN or BBC news, and find it impossible to understand both the blending and the vocabulary. They might try more intermediate listening exercises like NHK radio materials, but the slow speed and the focus on vocabulary building does not really prepare them for real listening situations such as weekly teleconferences.

Clearly some additional kind of training is needed. To this end, I have developed two kinds of listening dictation exercises that help students learn how to cut blends into words.

The first kind of dictation focuses on Small Word and Consonant-Vowel blends. According to my instructions, students write a word or draw a small picture in a blank square on a numbered grid. For example, “Go right <grait> two squares. In this square, write what day it is <watday-yi-tiz]> today”. Next, go up one <gowupwon> square and draw a picture <draap-ichuravakat> of a cat. After about ten instructions, I dictate them again in sentence form with blanks for the blended words. In this way students can clearly link the way words are written and what they actually sound like.

Once students can identify a variety of Small Word and Consonant-Vowel blends, we move onto Dropped-H blends, for which I use a short funny stories with blanks for the <h> words. For example, “Then he <thenee> dropped his <droptiz> coat on the seat next to her <tuwer>”.

The dictation format works very well because in real time, I can watch how each student reacts to each instruction or sentence and then give hints and repeat blends as many times as needed. My hope is that these dictations make a real difference in my students’ working lives, allowing them to participate more actively in discussions and feel confident they have correctly heard what native speakers have said.

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