Pronunciation & Fluency
You know the words. Now learn what they actually sound like.
Americans do not say every word they write. Sounds get shortened, joined together, and dropped entirely. “Did you eat yet?” leaves the mouth as three quick sounds, not four separate words.
That gap between the written sentence and the spoken one is the reason a student with good grammar can still freeze in a real conversation. This is where you close it.
What is here
Two sections are finished and have recordings. The rest are being built. Nothing below links anywhere it should not — if it is not ready, it says so.
Connected speech & reduced forms
Why “Did you eat yet?” sounds like didja eet yet. Twenty sentences, each recorded twice — once carefully, once at real speed — plus a dictation exercise to test whether your ear is catching up.
Ready nowStress & rhythm
Which word English leans on, and what changes when it moves. Three sentences recorded with the stress on every word in turn — same words each time, a different meaning every time.
Intonation & meaning
How the rise and fall of the voice turns a statement into a question, a thank-you into sarcasm, and a request into an order — without changing the words at all.
Sounds & minimal pairs
Ship or sheep, pen or pin, cap or cab. The small vowel and consonant differences that change the word entirely, plus silent letters and homophones.
How to use this
Five minutes at a time beats an hour once a month. Your ear changes slowly and then suddenly, and it only changes with repetition.
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Read the sentence first
Look at the written English before you hear anything. You want to know exactly what is coming, so the surprise is the sound and not the meaning.
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Hear it carefully, then hear it fast
Every sentence is recorded twice by the same speaker. Play them back to back. The gap between the two versions is the thing you are actually learning.
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Only then look at the sound spelling
The written-out version of the sound stays hidden until you ask for it. Reading it too early lets your eyes do the work your ears need to do.
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Test it with dictation
You hear the fast version and type the full written sentence. This is the part that proves it worked, because guessing does not survive a blank box.
You do not have to speak this way. Nobody will think less of you for saying every word clearly, and in a Cambridge speaking exam these reductions are neither required nor rewarded. But you do have to understand them, because the person talking to you will not slow down.
Start with the sentences you hear every day
Twenty of the most common reduced sentences in American English, each recorded twice, with a dictation exercise at the end. It takes about ten minutes the first time through.
Open the connected speech decoder