Listening: Core English skills part 2

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PTE Author
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Reading time: 4 minutes

During Part 3: Listening in PTE Academic, you will need to know pronunciation in order to understand what the speakers are saying.

Pronunciation

When completing PTE Academic, you will hear a variety of accents from both fluent English speakers and second language speakers, as you would in the real world. Don’t worry, the accents will be clear and regular users of English do not have trouble understanding them. To prepare you should choose texts from around the world and practice listening to a wide range of accents.

The recordings in PTE Academic use authentic examples of speech, so there will be connected speech present. Connected speech includes: assimilation, elision, twinning, catenation, linking vowel sounds, intrusive sounds, the schwa /ə/, weak forms, and contractions. These words are not used in English when you pronounce each word separately. They are only used in connected speech.

Assimilation

In connected speech in English, the sound at the end of a word can change to sound the same as the beginning of the first word.

Watch these videos from BBC Learning English to better understand assimilation:

Elision

Elision occurs when a sound is not pronounced at all by the speaker.

For example, we say pos card, but we write postcard.

This Pronunciation: The sound /s/ video shows how it works.

Twinning

When you finish a word with the same sound as the start of the next word, it’s called twinning.

Watch the video below to learn more:

Catenation

Catenation is when one word ends in a consonant sound and the next one starts with a vowel and we say the two words as one.

The below video will help you learn more about catenation:

Linking vowel sounds

When we speak, we use the /j/ (the first sound in yellow) and /w/ (the first sound in wet) to link words that end with a vowel to the next word that starts with a vowel.

For example, we would say he yordered, but we write he ordered and you say go won, but write go on.

To learn more about linking /j/ and linking /w/ you can view this video:

Intrusive sounds

When we speak, we add a /r/ (first sound in the word red) when the first word ends in some vowel sounds and the next word also starts with a vowel sound.

For example, we say sawrants but we write saw ants.

This video on intrusive sounds will help you understand better:

The schwa /ə/

The most common vowel sound in English is the schwa /ə/. It is used in connected speech and is when you pronounce a vowel, which is not stressed in a word.

This video will better explain what it means and how it’s used:

Weak forms

In addition to the above, the schwa /ə/ is used to pronounce the vowel in weak forms of grammar words in connected speech. It can be a little confusing so we recommend watching all of the below videos to learn more:

Contractions

In connected speech, when we are not stressing the subject, verb, or not, we do not use the full form of the subject and verb with verbs be and have. These are contractions.

Contractions are also used with be, have and do in the negative, as well as some modal verbs in the negative.

For example:

  • I am =>I’m

  • You are =>you’re

  • We have =>we’ve

  • They have =>they’ve

  • You are not => you aren’t

  • They are not => they aren’t

  • He/she/it is not =>he/she/it isn’t (you can also use he’s/she’s/it’s not)

We also use I’m not and we’re not and do not => don’t, did not => didn’t, cannot => can’t, will not => won’t, might not => mightn’t. They are used very often in connected spoken English so make sure to listen carefully to pick these up.

The below video will take you through this type of connected speech:

All of the above types of connected speech are important in the Fill in the Blanks, Highlight Incorrect Words and Write from Dictation question types.

As part of Part 3: Listening in your test, you will need to review your vocabulary and grammar skills, as well as learn cohesive devices and signal language. You can read more about these core English skills in part 3.

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