Transcript of AE 1328 - HAVE and HAS - Spoken Contractions in English

G'day you mob, and welcome to Aussie English. I am your host, Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go.

G'day, you mob! How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. Today is another pronunciation episode where we are going to practice contracting 'have' and 'has' onto their respective pronouns I, He, She, You, We, They and It.

And we will go through pronunciation of the full 'I have', 'he has', uncontracted, the contracted version 'I've' 'he's' 'she's. And then we'll use some larger sentences and go through each of them a little more in depth and talk about things like maybe intonation, stress, linking other aspects of Australian pronunciation.

Obviously this episode is brought to you by my Australian Pronunciation Course. So if you want to reduce your foreign accent and speak more confidently with your own Australian accent, go and check this out at AussieEnglish.com.au/APC as in Australian Pronunciation Course, and 1 0 0 100, as in you'll save $100 if you use that link. Okay, so once again the link is AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100.

And there's a seven day money back guarantee so you can get in there, check it out, learn as much as you want within the first seven days. If you decide for whatever reason, it's not for you. You'll get your money back, okay. So go check that out.

Also, there is a free PDF that you can download for this episode that will have the sentences that we're going to go through in it so that you can obviously take notes, you know, you can print it out and you can read along as you practice your pronunciation.

But yeah, without any further ado, let's get into it. Okay. So, 'to have'. We're going to play with 'to have' and contracting this on to pronouns today.

Let's just start by saying the different pronouns and 'have' as it's conjugated in the present tense. And we will then contract it together, okay. So for instance you'll have "I have" and then "I've", okay. We'll practice that first And then we'll go through some longer sentences.

I have. I've. He has. He's. She has. She's. You have. You've. We have. We've. They have. They've. It has. It's.

Now, firstly, let's go through and think about what's happening there with the pronunciation of 'has' when it gets contracted onto 'he' 'she' and 'it'. So, what do you notice when it's contracted. Do you hear a Z sound or an S sound? /He has/. /He's/ /she has/ /she's/. So those are Z sounds, right. The voiced /Z/ sound.

And then with /it's/ what do you hear? Do you hear a Z or an S sound? /It's/ it's an S sound. It's a /s/ S sound. Unvoiced, this time. So it's interesting that 'has', which normally has a voiced /z/ sound at the end of it loses that with the word 'it's'. /It's/. The reason this happens is because it ends with an Unvoiced T sound /it/, right. So it would be weird to try and voice it again and say a z sound after it. It would be like /it's/, yeah, it's a bit weird. It would sound like a D was in there /id/ and then /z/.

Anyway, so 'I have' 'I've', 'He has' 'He's', 'She has' 'she's', 'You have' 'you've', 'We have' 'we've', 'They have' 'they've', 'It has' 'it's' 'it's'.

Cool! So that was pretty straightforward, I think. Hopefully you guys have got that.

Another question that I often get is how do you tell the difference between 'he has' being contracted to 'he's', or 'he is' being contracted to 'he's'. Because they would actually sound the same if you contract 'is' onto 'he' 'she' or 'it'.

So 'he is' 'he's' 'she is' 'she's' 'it is' 'it's'. They do sound the same. 'He has' 'he's' 'he is' 'he's' 'she has' 'she's' 'she is' 'she's' 'it has' 'it's' 'it is' 'it's'. They all sound the same as their, well, partners, right? So, 'it has' 'it is', sounds the same. 'He has' 'he is' sounds the same. 'She has' 'she is' sounds the same.

The way that we work this out is that, I think probably 90% of the time, maybe more, the context of the phrase is going to be obvious.

So you're going to be conjugating 'has' onto say, a pronoun, and then it'll be followed by certain words that show that that contraction of 'has' to just /z/ or /s/ is obviously a 'has', right. A good example would be the sentence we'll go through today.

"He's gone on holidays", right? "He's gone on holidays". "He's gone". "He's gone". We've, uh, used the past participle of the verb 'to go', as in 'gone'. "He's gone". So, "he's gone on holidays". "He has gone on holidays". It wouldn't make any grammatical sense to say "he is gone on holidays", "he is gone on holidays", so that tends to be how we know.

However, there are examples like if I just said "he's gone", I wouldn't know if it was "he is gone", like, or "he has gone". I would need more context. And yeah, I think quite often the difference there is very subtle and it probably wouldn't matter. The meaning would relatively, you know, it'd be the same thing. "He's gone." "What do you mean, just now?" "Yeah." "He has gone just now." "He's gone." "He is gone? What do you mean? Like, he's dead? He's gone?" You know, uh. So yeah.

And if in doubt, you just ask. You mean. "What do you mean he's gone? Where?" Or you know, "What do you mean he's gone? As in, he's not here?", you know? So you can always ask for clarification. But by and large, these contractions are used by English speakers because we don't need to hear the entire word. It's obvious through context.

Okay, so let's go through some longer sentences and we'll talk about other interesting aspects of Australian English pronunciation in these sentences as we go.

So let's start with 'I have' 'I've' "I've already done my homework." "I've already done my homework." "I've already done my homework."

You may notice that /I've/ kind of gets contracted down a little bit. It gets shortened. "I've already done my homework." It's really quick, right? Of, it's almost a schwa. It probably is. "I've already done my homework." "I've already done my homework." So you can just speed this up. And I think native speakers of Australian English would do that. "I've already done my homework." "I've already done it." "I've already done it." "I've already done it." Really quick. Really quick, right? We often skip over that part. Because again, it's obvious through context you're talking about yourself. "I've already done my homework."

Now let's listen to the linking in this phrase. It happens between /I've/ and /already/ and I think that's probably about, about it through this, this sentence. /I've already done my homework./ /I've already done/.

Remember when we link words, quite often what happens is that we take, if a word ends with a consonant, we take the consonant at the end of one word, at the end of a syllable, and we shove it onto the front of the next word onto the front of that syllable. So you'll hear, /I volready done/, right. /I volready done/, /I volready done/. So the /v/ sound gets to the start of the word 'already', and in front of the syllable /ol/ so it sounds like /vol/.

/I volready done/, /I volready done/, /I volready done my homework/. /I volready done my homework/. /I volready done my homework/ /already/ /already/. So, /I volready done/. /Already/ I'm trying to think where's the stress there? /Already/ /already/. I think it feels to me like it's kind of even across that word. /Already/. Da dah. Like, actually, it's three syllables. Da da da. So the last syllable is kind of sped over. /Already/ /already/ /already/. Da da da da da da da. "I've already done my homework." We then stress 'done'. /I've already done my homework/. And then the first syllable of the word 'homework'. "I've already done my homework." "I've already done my homework."

Good job. Let's keep going. 'He has' 'he's'. "He's gone on holidays." "He's gone on holidays." "He's gone on holidays." "He's gone on holidays." So, /he's gone on holidays/. Where do you notice the linking here? That's the first thing I can, that sort of jumps out at me, to talk about. Where's the linking in this phrase? /He's gone on holidays/. /gone/ and /on/, right? 'On' starts with a vowel, 'gone' ends with an /n/ N sound.

So we take that N and we shove it to the front of the following syllable /gonon/, /gonon/. /He's gonon holidays/, /he's gonon holidays/. /He's gonon holidays/.

And then with stress. Where do you notice the stress in this phrase? If you were to think about the rhythm of it, like try and think about the beats.

/He's gone on holidays/. Da da da da da. Da da da da da da da. Where's the stress? "He's gone", so the primary verb there that's being conjugated, uh, into, I guess, the past participle 'gone'. /He's gone/ /on holidays/ and the first syllable of the word 'holidays'. "He's gone on holidays". "He's gone on holidays".

Next one. 'She has'. 'She's'. "She's finished writing her book." "She's finished writing her book." "She's finished writing her book." Now, there's some interesting stuff happening here. "She's finished writing her book." You'll notice again, we sort of go over "she's" really quickly. So instead of saying, like /she's finished writing her book/, I say almost like /shiz/, right. /Shiz finished writing her book/. /Shiz finished writing her book/. /Shiz finished/. It can be like an /shees/ or a /shiz/, it's just really sped over quickly. /Shiz finished writing her book/.

So, linking wise, what's going on? Okay, /she's finished writing/. There's some really interesting stuff happening between the word 'finished' and 'writing'. 'Finished' ends with a D, /finished/ /D/, and 'writing' starts with an R sound. Even though the word is written with a W, it starts with an R sound, right? /Writing/. /Writing/. We got the T flap in the middle there. /Writing/ instead of /wriTing/. /Writing/. Don't forget, if you have an Unstressed T, then and there's a vowel on either sidew we use the T flap. /writing/ /writing/.

But /finished writing/ /finished writing/. I guess the D sound at the end of the word 'finished', it's actually a T sound, right? Because /sh/ is unvoiced, so /sht/ /finisht/ /finisht/. And because we have a T followed by an R sound here, we can kind of say this like /tr/ /tr/ like the word /tree/ or /truck/ or /travesty/, you hear like a ch kind of sound /ch/ followed by the R /tr/, right. It's not tuh-ree, it's /tree/, it's not too-ruck, it's /truck/.

And so this can happen. This is a simulation where, because there's a T at the end of the word 'finished', a T sound, and a /ruh/ sound, an R sound, at the start of the word 'writing'. These can kind of merge together and form that /truh/ sound. So I think I noticed myself saying that, I'll have to go go back and listen, but /finisht riting/. You may hear it very lightly. /Finisht riting/ /finisht riting/, /finisht riting/. Yeah, it's like a little C-H in there. /Finisht riting/. "She's finished writing her book." "She's finished writing her book." So that's a simulation. This is what happens sometimes with different sounds.

When they're next to one another, they merge and they can turn into new sounds in probably pretty much any language, but definitely in English and in different dialects. "She's finished writing her book", "she's finished writing a book", and it's kind of like laziness in the mouth. It just speeds up speaking. So instead of clearly articulating both sounds, /she's finisht/ /riting her book/.

You kind of merge them together as your mouth tries to be more efficient and say those sounds quickly. You know, "she's finished writing her book". "She's finished writing her book".

What do you notice with the word 'her'? Listen again. "She's finished writing her book". Do you hear an H sound or not? /She's finished writing her book/, so there's no H. You can say it. She's finished writing /her/ book, but you'll notice that it kind of adds a break into the sentence, into the flow. "She's finished writing /her/ book", right? "She's finished writing /her/ book". You kind of have to stop and then start again. "She's finished writing /her/ book".

Whereas if you remove the H, you can kind of link from the NG sound, that /ng/ sound at the end of 'writing', to /er/ in the word 'her'. So you'll hear /writing-er/ /writing-er/ /writing-er/ /she's finished writing-er book/. /She's finished writing-er book/.

And the other thing is, we don't pronounce the R in the word 'her' because it's followed by a consonant /B/ at the start of the word 'book'. So the ER in 'her' is just a long /er/ vowel sound. /She finished writing-er book/. /She finished writing-er book/. No R. Let's keep going.

You have. You've. You've. "You've been so kind to me." "You've been so kind to me."

And you know what? I would probably contract this further. "You've been so kind to me". You could do /kind to me/. You could also further contract this and say like /kind-a me/. /Kind-a me/. /You've been so kind-a me/. "You've been so kind to your friends." Kind-a kind-a kind-a. So it sounds like, um, 'kind of'. It's the same for 'kind to' when that 'to' isn't stressed. It gets reduced and given the schwa sound /kind to me/. /Kind to me/. And you've got a D at the end of 'kind', it kind of merges together. Those, the D and the T, and you just get 'kinda', 'kind of'. "You've been so kind to me." "You've been so kind to me."

What do you notice that happens with 'you'? Is it really stretched out or is it very short? "You've been so kind to me." "You've been so kind to me." Really quick, right? And is it a long /oo/ vowel sound? /youv/ or does it get the schwa vowel sound? "You've been so kind to me." "You've been so kind to me." It gets the schwa sound. "You've been so kind to me." "You've been so kind to me." We changed the pronunciation of 'been' quite often to /bin/ or /bin/ when speaking quickly in Australian English. "You've been so kind to me." Almost sounds like you're saying 'bin', right, where you put your rubbish. It could be the schwa sound that you get in there. "You've been so kind to me." "You've been so kind to me."

It sounds a bit more like Kiwi though when I say it that way. Like /you've bin really nice/. /Yeah, bro, you've bin really nice/. Hey, don't don't mind me. Kiwis, New Zealanders, for anyone who doesn't know, that's our sort of affectionate name for New Zealanders. Kiwis.

"You've been so kind to me." I think I would say /bin/. You can say /been/. "You've been so kind to me." There's nothing wrong with that. You know, you can definitely do that. But I think naturally I would say "you've been so kind to me". It's almost like a /bin/ /bin/ kind of sound. "You've been so kind to me." "So kind to me."

"You've been so kind to me." What are we stressing here? "You've been so kind to me." We're kind of skipping over the first part of the sentence. "You've been so" and then "kind to me". "Kind to me". 'Kind' and 'me' are stressed. "You've been so kind to me." You could probably argue that 'been' is also being stressed to some degree. "You've been so kind to me." Da da da da da da. Okay? "You've been so kind to me." "You've been so kind to me." Let's keep going.

We have. We've. We've completed the task to get. Well, this is a hard one. We've completed the task together. It's the. It's those consonants. When I say 'task together'. Geez, that's. That's tough. That is definitely tough, 'task together'. 'Task together', yeah.

'Task together'. "We've completed the task together", so we've gets kind of reduced again given that schwa sound. /Wev/. "We've completed the task together." "We've completed the task together." Again, you don't have to speak this way, but it's good to know it and be able to hear it. When Aussies contract things this much, you know. And it's fun to practise this stuff as well, but you don't have to. Worst case scenario, just speak clearly. Say all these words clearly.

"We've completed the task together." "We've completed the task together." So, which words are we stressing here? 'Completed'. We get the second syllable in the word 'completed' /com/ the c o m in 'completed' is actually reduced. You get that schwa sound /c'mpleted/ /c'mpleted/. The T in 'completed' is a T flap because there are vowels either side of it. /completed/ /completed/ /completed the task together/.

And the words we are stressing at the end there, 'task' and 'together'. You'll notice the second syllable in the word 'together' 'toGEther' 'together' de de de de de de 'toGEther' is what's stressed. And what happens to T O at the start of 'together' it gets reduced to just /tu/. "We've completed the task together." It's, it's so tough when you have three or more consonants in a row. So you've got the S sound /s/, you've got the K sound /k/, and then you've got the /t/ sound at the start of the word 'together'. /task together/ /task/ /together/ /task together/ It's hard to do slowly. /Task together/ /Task together/. So practice those a lot. Those compound consonants where you've got loads in a row.

Okay. Next one. They have. They've. "They've been working hard all day." "They've been working hard all day." "They've been working hard all day." Again we speed over 'they've'. It's still kind of got the A vowel sound in there. /They've been/, /they've been/, /they've been/ it's it's very fast though. "They've been working hard all day." 'Been' here we reduce, and we then say clearly 'working' right. Right. We stress the first syllable in 'working' /erKing/ /working/ /working/ /working/ dit dit dit dit dit dit dit. That first syllable, 'working' /he's working/.

'Hard' 'all' 'day'. How do you hear this being said? /hahd-all day/ /hahd-all day/ /hahd-all/ /hahd-all/ no R Just a long /ah/ vowel sound. That's because AR is followed by D a consonant. /hahd/ /hahd/ now that D turns into a T or D flap, because the next word 'all' starts with a vowel sound. /hahd-all/ /hahd-all/. You can pronounce the L sound in the word 'all' as a light L, the proper L sound /all/, right. /All/ but because the next word starts with a consonant /d/ at the start of the word 'day', a D sound. We can use the dark L, which is like a little reverse W, so instead of /wuh/, you'll hear your lips coming from a little circle and going to an even smaller circle.

/Oo/ /oo/. So if I say /all/ /all/ /all day/, /all day/, /hahd-all day/, T flap T link /hard all/ and then dark L to link 'all' and 'day' /hard all day/ /hard all day/ /hard all day/ /hard all day/. "They've been working hard all day." "They've been working hard all day."

You'll notice too, at the end of the word 'working', I actually turn the NG sound into an N kind of sound and give it a schwa vowel sound before it, so instead of /working/, I give it an /n/ sound /workin/. "They've been working hard all day."

Now I've noticed too. I'm saying the H in hard. You could remove that if you if you wanted. "They've been working hard all day." /Theyv been workin ard all day/. You could do that. And that starts sounding very sort of broad accent Australian the more you do the H Deletion that we talked about earlier, removing H from the start of words, the more you start sounding like a broader sort of Australian accent. "They've been working hard all day, mate." "Mate, they've been working hard all day." "All day."

All right. Last one. "It's already started to rain." I should probably contract 'it' and 'has' first. 'It has'. 'It's'. "It's already started to rain." "It's already started to rain". You can, there's different levels of contraction we can do here too. "It's already started to rain." "It's already started to rain."

Okay. /Itsalready/, /itsalready/. So we're linking 'it's' and 'already' /itsalready/. 'It's' ends with a consonant, and S consonant, 'already' starts with a vowel sound O /itsalready/. "It's already started to rain."

Two, we can reduce and give a schwa sound /tu/ and because there's a D at the end of the word 'started', you can merge the D and the T sound. So /started to/ you can merge them together and kind of give them a T flap. You may hear this sometimes. Again this is sort of broader accent territory for Australian English. "It's already started to rain." /Started to rain/. "It's already started to rain." /Started to rain/. It sounds a bit weird because there's two T flaps happening in a row. /Started/ /started/. There's a T flap in the middle of 'started' 'started' because you got vowels either side of that T, /started/ and it can sound a bit weird if you do two T flaps in a row. Though some Aussies do. Again, it's a broader accent type thing, so don't be afraid to say /started to rain/. "It's already started to rain." "It's already started to rain." It's still. Yeah. Da da da da da da da da da da. "It's already started to rain." So stress-wise, 'already'. Da da da da. 'Already', I guess. Da da da. It feels like the two. Yeah, again. It feels like the two syllables at the start of 'already' are sort of even. Da da da.

/already/ /already/ /already/ /started/ first syllable there, /started/. Da. And then 'rain' gets stressed as well. "It's already started to rain." Da da da da. Da da da da.

So there you go, guys. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode again. Give me feedback. If you're enjoying these let me know. Are they too long? Too short to advance to simple. Um, give me some feedback and let me know what you think you know. Shoot me an email or shoot me a message on Instagram. Tell me what you reckon. If you enjoy them, I'll try and do more of these in the future.

Be sure to go and check out the Australian Pronunciation Course if you want to learn all the vowel sounds consonant sounds in Australian English, and then all the more advanced stuff like linking H Deletion, the Australian R all of these things to sound more natural when speaking English in Australia. You can check that out at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100 the link will be in the description.

And also don't forget to check out the worksheet for today. It's free! You can download that. The link will be in the description for that too, and you will see all the phrases we went through and be able to work through that as well and take notes. All that jazz. So anyway, I'm Pete, this is Aussie English. I hope you have an absolute ripper of a day, mate, and I'll see you next time. Tooroo!