Learning American Accent: Linking words, consonant to consonant

When we speak English fluently, we often link between words.  There are many types of linking.  We will address consonant to consonant linking first.

When the consonant sound at the end of a word is the same sound that starts the next word, we pronounce the consonant only once if it is a continuant sound.  Continuants can be held, like s can be held out: sssssssss.  Stopped sounds cannot be held, for example p cannot be drawn out to ppppp.

Continuant consonants include f, v, s, z, th, sh, m, n, l and r.

examples: 
    if friends  sounds like  iffriends 

    have very sounds like havvery   

    bus station sounds like busstation  
 
    has zero sounds like hazzero    
  
    with thought sounds like withought  
 
    wish she sounds like wishee       
 
    I’m moving sounds like I’mmoving  

    clean knife sounds like cleannife
  
    feel like sounds like feellike     
  
    or red sounds like orred      

These are not run together as one word so much as there is not a distinct stop to the ending consonant and start of the beginning consonant.

When the ending consonant is a stopped consonant, we also link to the next consonant, but instead of continuing the sound into the next sound, we stop the consonant and don’t release the air.  So when we say the word “stop” by itself, the p has a puff of air following it.  When we say the phrase “stop that,”  we stop our p sound but don’t release the puff of air.  You can listen to the recordings of the examples to hear these phrases unlinked and linked.

Stopped consonants include:  p, b, t, d, k, g

examples:
stop pointing  
    
web browser      

not today     

did do          

like candy       

big game   

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