About English Enunciation Problems.THX!!!

English Is hardly ever spoken 'as written'. Many difficult consonant combinations are elided and the change of the /ng/ sound to /n/ is very common in certain classes of speakers. Some of these elisions are so common that they are represented in writing (don't, let's. can't) Let's take your examples in turn. (By the way, 'let's take', which is a contraction of 'let us take', may often be pronounced as 'less take' because the consonants /t/ /s/ /t/ are awkward in combination, so the less important first 't' may be dropped by some speakers.) 1) The change from /ng/ to /n/, especially at the ends of words is very common and has been a feature of many dialects (and also of upper class speech) since at least the 18th Century. Some dialects (especially those from London and around) sometimes take it to the opposite extreme and add a /g/ or a /k/ after the /ng/ so that 'something' , for example, sounds more like 'sumpthink'! (notice that the labial plosive /p/ is also inserted to 'help' the transition between the labial /m/ and the unvoiced aspirate /th/). In combinations where '-ing' is followed by a vowel, you may occasionally hear the insertion of a /g/ after the /ng/, so that 'cooking up' may either come out as 'cookin' up' (many American English speakers, a number of British dialects and also many upper class British speakers) or 'cooking-gup' (especially London, Essex and Hertfordshire dialects and those of many industrial towns). 2) The softening of the 'v' sound in 'every' is quite common. It is usually still there as a slight breathing through parted lips - more like a /wh/ or a /b/ which has lost the plosive - before the tongue forms the /r/. This may be less evident in singing and difficult to detect in a recording. The reason for the 'softening' is that the /v/ sound properly involves the upper lip and the lower teeth and the /r/ sound requires a reconfiguration of the lips, teeth and tongue (in Southern British English there is usually no 'tap' of the tongue against the palate). In preparing for the /r/ sound, therefore, the jaw is in the wrong position for the /v/ sound, so it is often formed as a slight voicing through parted lips rather than by bringing the lower teeth forward. 3 & 4) The loss of the final /t/ and /d/ in words like 'doesn't' and 'tend to' usually happens because of the consonant which follows. The combination 'doesn't like', for example, results in something similar to 'dozen klike' (the /t/ gets turned into a plosive formed at the sides of the tongue because of the /l/ which follows). 'Tend to' appears to lose the voiced /d/ because the /t/ which follows is unvoiced. Even correctly pronounced, the word 'tend' is actually formed something like /t//e//n//n//t/ (where the voiced nasal /n/ is slightly lengthened and the 'd' is represented by an unvoiced plosive tap at the end. If you say to yourself the words 'tend' and 'tent', you can probably feel the lengthening or emphasis of the /n/ sound which causes the /t/ at the end to sound like a /d/. When the word is followed by a /t/ the resulting 'double tap' /t//t/ is somewhat awkward (not to say ugly) and will naturally result in 'ten' to'. Notice that 'tend to' still has a slightly longer /n/ sound and does NOT sound like 'ten to' in the expression 'ten to one' (which will sound more like 'tenter won'). Over the years, English (along with most other languages) has constantly undergone changes in pronunciation and has lost some sounds which are still reflected in the spelling. The /gh/ sound, originally to be heard in words like 'though', 'through', 'trough', 'tight' and so on disappeared very early on. Only in a few words (like 'trough') has it been changed into an /f/. It used to be a guttural formed at the back of the throat and was written in some manuscripts with a character something like a '3', which also happened to look rather like the way that a cursive 'z' was written. This is the reason that the Scottish name 'Menzies' is actually pronounced 'Mingus' (NOT 'Ming-gus'). There are very few people now who make any distinction between the words 'which' and 'witch', 'where' and 'wear' (or 'ware') and 'what' and 'watt'.