AE 1332

WOULD - Spoken Contractions in Australian English

Learn Australian English in this episode of the Aussie English Podcast.

These episodes aim to teach you common English expressions as well as give you a fair dinkum true-blue dose of Aussie culture, history, and news and current affairs.

In today's episode...

G’day, you lot! Ever get tangled up with those tricky “would” contractions?

You know, “I’d,” “you’d,” “she’d,” and all that jazz? Well, chuck on your headphones and grab a cuppa, ’cause Pete’s here to sort you out!

In this ripper of an episode, we’re diving deep into how to pronounce those contractions like a true blue Aussie.

We’ll be breaking down how to say “I would” and turn it into a smooth “I’d,” and we’ll do the same with all the other pronouns. Plus, we’ll sort out that pesky confusion between “would” and “had” when they both sound like “d.” Context, mate, it’s all about context!

Pete’ll walk you through heaps of example sentences, pointing out all the little tricks like muting those “d” sounds, linking words together, and getting your stress and intonation spot on. You’ll learn about T-flaps, D-flaps, and even the mysterious Dark L! It’s a proper pronunciation workout, and you’ll be sounding like a local in no time.

So, if you’re keen to nail your Aussie accent and understand what we’re on about, this episode’s for you. Don’t forget to grab the free worksheet in the description and follow along! Ready to get your Aussie English sorted? Hit play now and let’s get into it!

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Transcript of AE 1332 - WOULD - 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. I am your host, Pete. And welcome to another pronunciation episode. Today we are going to be going through contracting "would" onto the different pronouns I, You, He, She, We, They and It. I'm sure you sort of get the program now, after the previous three episodes that we have done on the podcast with "have" and "has", "will" and "am", "is" and "are".

So before we get into it, today's episode is brought to you by my Australian Pronunciation Course. If you want to learn to speak with confidence and develop your own Australian accent and reduce your accent, then check out the Australian Pronunciation course at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100 okay /apc 100. You'll save $100 when you use that link. The link will be in the description for this episode, so click it, go check it out. Have a read.

There is a seven-day money back guarantee so you can sign up and try it for a week. Risk free. And if you don't like it, if you decide it is not for you, you don't have the time. You're not interested anymore. You've lost motivation. Whatever reason, you'll get your money back. Um, but yeah, inside the course, I go through all the different vowels and consonant sounds in Australian English. You have tutorial videos for each of these sounds. You then have exercise videos and audio files so that you can work on the pronunciation of these different sounds and master them quickly and effortlessly in a fun way.

And then in the last section of the course, we go through more advanced things like assimilation, consonant clusters, the Dark L, the Syllabic N and L. There's a whole bunch. There's like 25 different lessons in there. On the more advanced aspects of pronunciation that most teachers never teach students. This is the stuff that I have spent a lot of time learning and teaching my students over the years, and it's good fun, and it makes a big difference when you can do this. Not only just hearing Australians speak, you'll suddenly understand them a lot better and more clearly because you get the pronunciation. But you can also develop your own Australian accent and speak more confidently. So check that out. AussieEnglish.com/apc100. Link's in the description.

And lastly, don't forget to grab today's free worksheet again. The link will be in the description so that you can see the sentences that we're working on today. And you can take notes. You can print it out, you can read them all that sort of stuff whilst listening to this episode.

All right. So without any further ado, let's get into the pronunciation side of things. Firstly, we're going to go through the full phrase. I guess you know the pronoun and the word "would", "I would", "you would", "he would". And we're going to contract these each time so we can practice the pronunciation of them uncontracted, and then contracted. So "I would" becoming "I'd". Okay? Let's go.

I would. I'd. You would. You'd. He would. He'd. She would. She'd. We would. We'd. They would. They'd. It would. It'd.

Good work guys. Good work. Now something that I get asked about and we talked about this in the last episode. How do you tell the difference between "had" and "would" when they both contracted the same way onto pronouns? So "I had" "I'd" "you would" "you'd".

Again, this is through context right? "Would" is usually followed by an a bare infinitive, right. So the verb in the infinitive form without "to" in front of the verb. "I'd prefer", "I would prefer". "You'd enjoy", "You would enjoy". However, when we use "had", this is we're using "had" in this case as an auxiliary verb and it is going to work with a verb in the past.

So it would be a past participle. So, if you were to contract "had" onto "I", and you said "I'd preferred", you would have to use the past participle of the verb and not the infinitive. "I had preferred" "You had enjoyed" "He had left". "I'd preferred" "you'd enjoyed" "He'd left". So that's how usually, through context, we get it, right. And it just takes a bit of practice and getting used to just hearing these contractions quite often and using them yourself as well. And you'll get through it.

And, you know, sometimes native speakers as well, we kind of get confused. Someone might say something, a short sentence with a contraction and we're like, oh, was that was that a, um, 'had' or was that a would? And we would just ask, you know, what do you mean? You know, you just don't don't be afraid if you don't know to just always say, huh? Like, I don't get what you said. What did you say? Say it again. Say it a different way. So, yeah. It happens. It happens.

Anyway, now we're going to go through different sentences using "I'd", "you'd", "he'd", "she'd", "we'd", "they'd" and "it'd", and we will talk about other aspects of pronunciation as they come up as we go through these sentences, okay. Things like stress, um, where the schwas are used, perhaps intonation, any of those sorts of things that come up linking words, linking sounds, rather, linking the different words together with sounds and assimilation.

We did, we've done that each episode so far and I hope you've enjoyed it. But yeah, let's get into it, okay.

I would, I'd. I'd prefer coffee over tea. I'd prefer coffee over tea. I'd prefer coffee over tea.

Okay. "I'd prefer". One thing you're going to notice here with "I'd" with this D sound at the end of these words when, when "would" is contracted onto these pronouns. Quite often we mute them, or they may even turn into a T flap. The sound may actually change, so you're not necessarily going to hear a hard D sound like /I'd/. /I'd prefer/. You're going to hear, in this case, the D kind of gets muted so that we're not adding in a vowel sound after it. /I'd/, right, that /uh/ sound you don't want to add that in because it it makes things confusing.

So we don't want an extra vowel between "I'd" and "prefer". So we mute the D and just go straight into the P sound at the start of the word "prefer" "I'd prefer". And by muting, what I mean here is that we go to make the D sound, so the tongue closes by touching the top of the mouth behind the teeth, right? As if you're going to go say the word, or the word, the sound /duh/ and it just doesn't release. So you don't do the /uh/ part at the end, right where the air comes out, you go straight to the P sound.

I'd prefer, I'd prefer. So practice slowly and then try and speed it up. I'd prefer, I'd prefer, I'd prefer, I'd prefer. I'd prefer coffee over tea.

Now when we say "coffee over tea", what do you hear? Linking "coffee◡over". So the word "coffee" and "over". There's two vowels next to one another. E at the end of the word "coffee", and O at the start of the word "over". So when there are two vowels next to one another like that, we link them with a small kind of subtle /yuh/ /wuh/ or /ruh/ sound in English. And in this case, because we are using the word or the word. Gosh, I keep doing that, don't I?

We're using the sound E, where the lips are very wide like a smile. /eeyuh/ they come inwards and you kind of make a /yuh/ a Y kind of sound. /Yuh/ /coffee◡over/. And it's subtle. It's not like /coffee yover/, you know. It's, it's not really accentuated. It's subtle /coffee◡over/ /coffee◡over/ /coffee◡over/. So just imagine a little Y in between these words. Linking them together between those two vowels. "Coffee over tea", "I'd prefer coffee over tea". "I'd prefer coffee over tea".

Now let's have a think about stress. "I'd prefer coffee over tea" "I'd prefer", second syllable of the word "prefer". So you can hear the schwa sound at the start.

There, for that first syllable /pre/fer/ /prefer/ "I'd prefer coffee". Its first syllable of the word "coffee" gets stressed. "I'd prefer coffee over tea". "I'd prefer coffee over tea". And then "tea" gets stressed. So the words that get stressed are "prefer" "coffee" and "tea". And there are different syllables in "prefer" and "coffee" that get stressed. /Pre/FER/ second syllable /COF/fee/ first syllable. "I'd prefer coffee over tea".

Let's keep going. "You would". "You'd". "You'd enjoy this new book". "You'd enjoy this new book". "You'd enjoy this new book". "You'd enjoy this new book".

So "you'd", at the start here, it can get reduced to just /yud/ /yud enjoy this/. /I reckon yud enjoy this/. We often do that. We'll give it the schwa vowel. Really speed things up and just quickly pass over that word. It's really obvious when you're talking to just one other person that you're going to be using the pronoun "you" all the time. I think that's why we reduce it quite a lot. Because yeah, context, right? You're talking to someone, it's unlikely you're going to start using "it" or you know, "she" when directly talking to another person, you're going to use "you". "You'd enjoy this new book." "You'd enjoy". Now what happens to the D at the end of the word "you'd" or "you'd"? Is it a hard D or is it a T flap? Or is it a muted D? "You'd enjoy", "you'd enjoy", "you'd enjoy".

It's a T flap or D flap in this case. So we're using that /ruh/ type sound where the tongue kind of flaps across the top of our mouth and just slightly interrupts the airflow. "You'd enjoy". "You'd enjoy". Why? Why are we doing this? We have a D between two vowel sounds. So you've got the /ooh/ or /uh/ in "you'd" or "you'd", and you have the /in/ at the start or /i/ at the start of the word "enjoy". "Enjoy". "You'd enjoy". "You'd enjoy". "You'd enjoy". So we use the T or D flap there. "Enjoy" "enjoy".

We're using I don't think it's a schwa sound per se. It's more of an /i/ sound, like in the word "it", right? /injoy/. You wouldn't. I don't think it would be like /'njoy/. It's a weird one, right? Where you've got an E that sounds like /ih/, so /injoy/. "You'd enjoy this new" linking here the S and the N, /snyoo/ /snyoo/. It's a weird sound, right? I guess it's also because new in English, we would use the yod sound the /yuh/ in front of the /e/ or the /oo/ vowel sound in that word. So instead of saying "new" like an American, we would say /nyoo/ where you've got like a /nyuh/ /nyuh/ /nyuh/ /nyuh/ /thisnyoo book/ /thisnyoo book/ /thisnyoo book/. So it's like an S and N and a /yuh/ sound there /snyoo/ /snyoo/. /Thisnyoo book/ "you'd enjoy this new book".

And which words are being stressed? "You'd enjoy this new book". "You'd enjoy this new book". /en/JOY/ /en/JOY. So second syllable in the word. "Enjoy", "new", and "book". "This new book"

And this /ih/ vowel sound can get reduced to just /uh/. "This new book". You may hear it as a schwa sound from time to time. "You'd enjoy this new book", like it's really quick. "This new book". Let's keep going.

He would. He'd. He'd already left when I arrived. He'd already left when I arrived. There's a lot going on here. "He had already". What's happening? Similar to the previous sentence "he'd already". We're using a T or D flap there between the E sound in "he'd" and the /aw/ sound in "already". Two vowels. D between them, not stressed, so "he'd◡already". We use a T flap D flap to link those. "He'd already". "He'd already" "already left when I arrived".

This is another one of those consonant clusters. So we have "left when". "Left when". It's an F, a T and a W sound, all together. "Left when" and it almost turns the T into a D kind of sound. Like it's not an obvious T, and it's probably because we're not aspirating it. We're not shooting out all that air. That kind of sound after a T. "Left when". Yeah, I think it's still sort of said as a voiceless T, but because of the lack of aspiration, because you're going straight into a /wuh/ sound, it doesn't sound as obviously a T like /left/ /left when/ /left when/ /left when I arrived/.

So what happens here "when I arrived"? There's a lot going on. "When I", we link or take the N from the end of the word "when" and put it at the front of the word "I", "when I" "when I" "when I arrived". And then we link "I" and "arrived" with a /yuh/ sound again. /I arrived/ /I arrived/. It's very subtle. /I arrived/ /I arrived/.

Another thing is that "arrived" starts with a schwa sound. /ərrived/ /ərrived/ because the second syllable is stressed /ər/RIVED. "He had already left when I arrived". "He had already left when I arrived". So which words are being stressed? "He had already left when I arrived". "He had already left when I arrived". "Already" "left" "I" and "arrived". "He had already left when I arrived". Let's keep going.

She would. She'd. She'd rather stay home tonight. She'd rather stay home tonight.

This is another case of like "she'd", you know, that long E vowel sound kind of getting really shortened down to, to say it really quickly. So it's almost, I don't know if it's quite a schwa "should" or if it's just a /shid/ like really quick /eed/ kind of sound "she'd already". Yeah. It's still like an E "she'd already", "she'd already" or "she'd rather", "she'd rather", "she'd rather stay home tonight". "She'd rather", "she'd rather", "she'd rather".

Now this is an interesting one. It's not a hard D kind of sound. "She'd rather", "she'd rather". It's a very soft kind of D sound, because we're going straight into an R sound at the start of the word "rather". "She'd rather". "She'd rather" "she'd rather". So like as the tongue comes up to make the D sound, we kind of release it slightly and then go straight into the R. "She'd rather", "she'd rather". "She'd rather stay home tonight". "She'd rather stay home tonight". "She'd rather stay home tonight".

So, "rather", where's the stress? /RA/ther/ /RA/ther/ the first syllable /ra/ /rather/ "rather stay home tonight". "She'd rather stay home tonight". And in "tonight", where's the stress? /Tə/night/ schwa at the start there, /tə night/ /tə night/ /tə night/. "She'd rather stay home tonight". So the words that are getting stressed. There's quite a few of them actually, "rather" "stay" "home" and "tonight". "She'd rather stay home tonight", although "stay" we kind of say pretty quickly, "she'd rather stay home tonight". "She'd rather stay home tonight".

All right. Next one. We would. We'd. We'd love to help if we can. We'd love to help if we can. We'd love to help if we can.

"We'd love". "We'd". "We'd". Very fast again. "We'd" just like "she'd" "she'd" "we'd" "she'd" "would", "we'd love to help if we can". "We'd love to help if we can". "We'd love to help". "To" gets reduced to just /tə/.

"We'd love to". "We'd love to help". "We'd love to help if we can" "help◡if", "help◡if". We take the P from the end of the word "help" and put it onto the front of the word "if" "help◡if". And you may notice that L sound in the word "help" because the L is followed by a P. We use a Dark L quite often. You can say the Light L, but quite often we use the Dark L to just speak quickly. So instead of /hell per/, you'll hear /help/, /help/. It's like a reverse W, closing of the lips into a little ring sort of shape. So instead of /el/, you get an /ewl/ kind of sound. /ewl/ /ewl/ /help/ /help/ /help if we can/, "we'd love to help if we can".

And which words are being stressed? "We'd love to help if we can". So, "love", "help" "can". "Oh, man, we'd love to help if we can". "We'd love to help if we can".

Let's keep going. They would. They'd. They'd never say that. They'd never say that. They'd never say that.

So again, we sort of speed over the a vowel sound in the contracted "they'd", "they'd never" "they'd never" "they'd never say that". "They'd never say that". "Never". Where's the stress? First syllable, /NE/ver. "They'd never say that".

One thing to note, too. These words like "rather" and "never". If you just say them on their own, "rather" or "never". Or they're at the end of a sentence where there's nothing coming after those words, the ER sound at the end there, is like an /a/, short /a/ sound /ratha/ /neva/.

But when they're within sentences like "she'd rather stay home tonight", "they'd never say that". To speed things up, we're using a schwa sound instead of a short /a/ sound, so you'll hear /ə/ instead of /a/. "They'd never say that". "They'd never say that", "never say that", "never say that". It's really quick. "She'd rather stay", "she'd rather stay". "They'd never", "never say". "They'd never say that". "They'd never say that".

Okay. Which words are being stressed? "They'd never say that". Probably saying "that" as well as "never". "They'd never say that". So all of them, except for "they'd", effectively. All right.

And the last one. It would. It'd. We use the T flap there, "it'd", "it'd", "it'd". And I'm muting the D at the end there. /Itd/ "it'd" T flap, muted D /itd/. "It'd be great to catch up". It's very percussive, right. You'll hear this, almost like this da da duh. "It'd be great to catch up". "Oh mate, it'd be great to catch up". "It'd be great to catch up". "It'd be great". "It'd be", "it'd be", "it'd be". What's happening too, is we mute that D /itd/ so we don't release it. We don't say /iteduh/ and then we go straight into the B at the start of the word B, right.

/itd◡be/, /itd◡be/, /it'd◡be/, /it'd◡be great to catch up/. "It'd be great to catch up". "It'd be great to catch up". "It'd be great". So we're stressing "great to catch up", "to catch up". We're stressing "catch" and "up" as well.

What happens to "to"? "It'd be great to catch up". It gets the schwa sound. It's unstressed that that word /tə/ "to catch up", "to catch up" da da duh, "to catch up". "It'd be great to catch up". It's a very percussive sentence. It's very like duh duh duh duh duh duh duh. "It'd be great to catch up".

So anyway, that's it guys. Hopefully you've enjoyed this episode. Definitely be sure to check out the Australian Pronunciation Course. You can go and check this out at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100. You'll save $100 when you use that link to sign up. The link is in the description. Remember, if you've got any questions, you can always shoot me an email. Or you can send me a message on Instagram and we can have a chat there too. If you've got some questions about the course, be sure to grab today's free worksheet as well so that you can read and listen. Whilst going through this episode. You can take notes, print it out, all that sort of jazz. And besides that, I hope you have an absolutely wonderful week. I'm Pete, this is Aussie English and I'll see you next time. Tooroo!