Native English speakers always seek to be efficient — meaning they say the most they can in the shortest amount of time.

Therefore, they combine and link words together with connected speech. This allows the speaker to speak with more flow and music. 

One way we speak with flow and efficiency is:

say the same or similar consonant sounds only once (and not twice with a breath in between).

Example

Native English speakers would not pause between words and say:

“Big – green – monster” [BɪG GRiYN MɑWN stər]

but they would combine the consonants sounds from the different words and just say them once, as in:

“big green monster” [Bɪ GRiYNMɑWNstər]

Did you hear how I only said the [g] sound once in “big green”?

I also did not stop between the [n] and [m] sounds in “green monster”.

Rule (C+C)

Therefore, when there are similar or the same consonant sounds from different words touching one another, you can combine the words with connected speech and just pronounce the consonant sound once (C+C).

Let’s practice.

Listen and Repeat

“He drives a black car.”
“Bad dog!”
“Let’s go west for vacation.” (See the lesson on the [ow] vowel sound)
“He took the night train to Georgia.”
“I love fries.”
“What a beautiful, still lake that is.”
“I’ll have some plum pie please.”