Strong Forms

Mastering the American Accent » Strong Forms

Strong Forms

When the function word is at the end of the sentence, or if it’s used for emphasis, make sure you use the “strong form” of the word. Let’s compare a few sentences with weak and strong forms.

	weak form reduced vowel	strong form full vowel
for	I’m looking for^/fɘr/ you.	Who are you looking for?
to	Would you like to^/tɘ/ go?	I’d love to.
at	He’s at^/ɘt/ the bank.	Are you laughing with me or at me?

Practice Dialogues

Reducing yourself, myself
a. I’m really ashamed of myself.
b. You need to forgive yourself and tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes. Stop punishing yourself. Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Why do you doubt yourself so much?
a. I guess I can’t help myself.
Reducing anywhere, anyone, anything
a. How was your weekend? Did you do anything interesting?
b. I didn’t do anything, I didn’t see anyone, I didn’t go anywhere.
Reducing to, for, as, of, can, an
a. Are you the owner of this restaurant?
b. Yes I am.
a. Can I talk to you for a moment?
b. Sure, how can I help you?
a. We’ve been waiting for our food for over an hour.
b. I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll talk to the chef and I’ll bring it out as soon as I can.

Warning: Common Mistake

Don’t speak quickly unless you know for certain the rules of which words to stress and which to reduce. Some non-native speakers develop a habit of speaking English at a fast pace, thinking that this will make them sound more like native speakers. Instead, it actually makes their speech harder to understand. Remember, American speech follows the rules of stressing content words and reducing function words. So, we can conclude that Americans speak both quickly and slowly at the same time.

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