CONTRACTIONS
What are they and why do you need to know about them?
Many foreign students learning to speak English can find conversations with Native English speakers very difficult. One issue that causes difficulty when listening to others speak are CONTRACTIONS!
When Natives are speaking, they will often contract words with the use of an apostrophe. By doing this, they combine two words together in order to speak faster and more fluently.
Example:
John could say: I am going to the cinema tonight but I will not be long.
In general, even though this sentence is accurate, Natives don't speak like this. (Do not = Don't)
Instead you will hear this;
John would say: I'm going to the cinema tonight, but I won't be long.
In this second example, you can see the following:
I am = I'm
will not = won't
The apostrophe takes place of missing letters so the two words can be shortened and said together.
If you can master your CONTRACTIONS, your fluency will improve.
Look at some more examples below...
Try to use these next time you are having conversations in English.
1StepEnglish
Is` wanna´ CONTRACTION?
ReplyDeleteHi Mana
ReplyDeleteYes, some forms of syncope may also be considered contractions, such as wanna for want to, gonna for going to, y'all for you all, and others common in colloquial speech.
This is however very informal and would only be used in colloquial speech.
More formally accepted contractions are when two words have been joined together with the an apostrophe taking place of the missing letters.
Hope this helps :)