Connected speech is a speaking technique that native English speakers use to speak with flow and musicality.

It’s essential that English language learners learn and practice the rules of connected speech if they want to:

speak clearly and

understand native English speakers.

Connected speech is most obvious when we connect a consonant to a vowel (C+V). However, sometimes this consonant-vowel linking comes when two words are connected by two vowels.

Example

If I say:

“Do you see it?” [dyuw SiYyɪt]

I don’t stop between every word and say:

“Do – you – see – it?” [DUW YUW SiY ɪt]

Instead, I connect the words with connected speech and say,

“Do you see it?” [dyuw SiYyɪt]

Notice that the words “see” and “it” are connected by two vowels, the letter /e/ and the letter /i/.

In English, the sound in the word “see” actually ends in the consonant sound [y].

“see” [siy]

So, when I connected the “see” to “it”, I connected the [y] to the [ɪ] and said:

“see it” [SiY  yɪt]