Transcript of AE 985 - How To Contract DO and DOES | Australian Pronunciation Lesson

G'day, you mob. Pete here, from Aussie English, and welcome to the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. Today I'm going to be helping you understand fast English when the auxiliary verbs "do" and "does" are contracted onto pronouns in English, in spoken English. And you might be thinking, does it really matter? Do I really need to learn this?

It does matter, and you definitely do need to learn this, if you want to speak English more confidently and sound more like an advanced English speaker, like a native English speaker, if you really want to use that term. So, I'm going to break down the pronunciation of the auxiliary verb with the pronoun, and then I'm going to give you three exercise sentences that you can repeat after me.

Okay, so if you need to pause the video at any time to read these sentences aloud, go for it, find somewhere you're comfortable, where you can speak out loud, so that we can level up your pronunciation as well as your listening comprehension. Don't forget, guys, make sure that you stay until the end of this episode, because I have a special gift for you that's going to really help you level up your spoken English.

All right, are you ready? Let's go. So, number one, alright, we'll start from the start. "Do I. Do I". The first pronunciation change you'll notice here when these are said more closely together, "do I, do I" is that this wee little "W" appears out of nowhere between the two vowel sounds /ʉː/ and /ɑe/. "do I, do I". So, we're linking these.

OK, if you need to check out the linking video on these different sounds, W's, Y's and R's go up here. "do I, do I". The next step we reduce the /ʉː/ vowel sound in the word "do" because now it becomes unstressed, we turn it into a schwa sound. That /ə/ schwa sound, the most common vowel in English. /ə/, okay. So, now it sounds like "dəˈwɑe. dəˈwɑe. dəˈwɑe. dəˈwɑe". So, let's go through some example sentences.

"Do I want to know what happened? I'm a bit sus, I'm not sure. Do I want to know? Do I want to know? Do I really want to know? Do I care what he thinks? dəˈwɑe. Do I care what he thinks? Do I really believe you? Do I really believe you?"

All right, number two, "do you" and I love this one. This is a great one because it's the weirdest of the bunch. The strangest of all the ones we'll go through, and you're about to see why. "Do you". Same vowel sound but we have /dʉː/ and /jʉː/. Okay. "Do you". The next step we turn the /ʉː/ vowel sound in the word "do" into a schwa. "dəˈjʉː, dəˈjʉː, dəˈjʉː, dəˈjʉː".

And then when we speak really quickly that schwa disappears, as does the "D" and as does the /jʉː/ sound, the "D" and the /jʉː/ merge, and you're going to hear "ʤʉː". Okay, so you're going to hear "ʤʉː. ʤʉː". So, instead of "do you, dəˈjʉː, ʤʉː". Let's go through some examples. "Do you want to get something to eat?" In fact, in fact, I should take this the furthest. You're gonna hear /ʤ/. You're gonna hear /ʤ/.

It's not just going to be "ʤʉː", that /ʉː/ sound in that word, that contracted version, "ʤʉː" is actually going to become a schwa, as well. /ʤ/. So, you're going to hear, "do you want to get something to eat? Do you want to get something to eat? Do you think that's true? Do you like chocolate?" So, /ʤ/, /ʤ/, /ʤ/. "Do you like chocolate?"

Number three, "does he, does he". You probably know the pattern if you saw the previous video, go and check that out up here. But when we have words beginning with "H" in connected speech, when there is a consonant before that "H", the "H" can disappear. We call that "H" deletion. So, instead of "does he", the first step to contracting this is removing that "H" and you're going to hear "dɐz‿iː, dɐz‿iː, dɐz‿iː", I got ahead of myself.

The next step is where we turn the /ɐ/ sound in "does" into a schwa /ə/ sound. So, you're gonna hear "dəˈziː, dəˈziː". And the emphasis is on the syllable z. "dəˈziː, dəˈziː", let's go through some sentences. "Does he live nearby? Does he want to go surfing? Does he play footy?" "dəˈziː, dəˈziː, dəˈziː". Number four, "does she, does she". The first step here, because we have a "Z" sound next to a "sh" sound, the "Z" disappears.

You're going to hear "dɐ‿ʃiː, dɐ‿ʃiː, dɐ‿ʃiː" And then the next step after that is reducing the /ɐ/ sound to a schwa. "dəˈʃiː, dəˈʃiː", emphasis on "she". "dəˈʃiː". "Does she know who you are? Does she go camping often? Does she drive fast?" Number five, "do we, do we". The /ʉː/ sound in "do" is contracted, it's unstressed, it's turned into the schwa sound /ə/, "dəˈwiː, dəˈwiː".

And sometimes you may not even hear the schwa sound and you'll just hear "dwiː, dwiː". So, I'm going to say these naturally, see if you can pick which one I'm using. Am I saying "dəˈwi" or am I saying "dwiː"? "Do we know the answer? Do we look like fools? Do we ever go rock climbing?" So, yeah, here I think I would say that little schwa sound, "dəˈwiː". It's very slight. "dəˈwiː, dəˈwiː, dəˈwiː"

Number six, "do they, do they, do they". The first and only step here really in contracting "do they" is to reduce the /ʉː/ sound into the schwa, "dəˈðæɪ, dəˈðæɪ". Let's go through some examples. "Do they want to come inside? Do they play chess? Do they like rock music?" Number seven, the very last one here, guys, "does it, does it".

So, the first step here is linking the /z/ sound at the end of "does" with the vowel /ɪ/ at the front of the word, "it". "dɐz‿ɪt, dɐz‿ɪt". The next step is turning the /ɐ/ vowel sound in "does" into a schwa. "dəˈzɪt, dəˈzɪt". Let's go through some example sentences, and firstly have a listen to this first sentence and see if you can notice what happens to the "T" in the word "it".

Is it hard T or is it a T-flap, like a...? Right. Like in the word "water". Have a listen. "Does it even matter? Does it even matter?" Hard T or T-flap? It was a T-flap, right. You got a vowel on either side of the "T", so we use the T-flap instead of a hard T. It's not "Does it even matter?" It's, "does it even matter? Does it even matter? Does it even matter?" Two more examples. "Does it look like it'll rain? Does it look like it'll rain?"

Another weird thing happened with that "T", turned into a glottal stop, we muted it because there was an L sound after it. "Does it look like it'll rain? dəˈzɪt. dəˈzɪt." Lastly, "does it take long to get there? Does it take long to get there?" Good job, guys. Good job. Now, let's go through a little recap here and then I'll tell you about the little surprise that I've got for you.

All right. So, in this little recap, we're just going to go through each of the different pairs of words, right, the auxiliary verb and the pronoun, "do I, do you". And then after that, I'll say a sentence for each one of them. Okay. Listen and repeat after me.

"Do I. dəˈwɑe. Do I want to know? Do you. ʤʉː or ʤ. Do you want to know? Does he. dəˈziː. Does he want to know? Does she. dəˈʃiː. Does she want to know? Do we. dwiː. Do we want to know?" I like how I turn my face each time I say this, like, I'm a bit suspect. "Do they. dəˈðæɪ. Do they want to know? Does it. dəˈzɪt. Does it want to know?" Good job, guys.

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