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Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Michael here and welcome back to speak

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naturally in a minute from Happy English. I'm here every

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Sunday with a quick one point lesson to help you

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improve your pronunciation, rhythm and intonation. And if you want

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to watch this lesson, just look for Happy English podcast

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on YouTube now. In every day spoken American English, we

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often use reduction that means we shorten or soften sounds

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when we speak. Today's example is the word didn't. Didn't. First,

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most native speakers drop the D in the middle, so

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instead of didn't, we say didn't didn't. The reason is

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if you pronounce the final D of did, and the

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next sound is n D followed by N makes the

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sound stop didn't. Dropping the D makes the sound smoother.

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Didn't like I didn't see your message becomes I didn't

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see your message, or she didn't call me back becomes

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she didn't call me back didn't. And there's one more thing.

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The final T in this word also tends to get

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very soft or disappears, so didn't becomes didn't. That's right,

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both the D and the T get reduced. I'm sure

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you hear this all the time, like I didn't hear

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you becomes I didn't hear you, she didn't call me back,

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becomes she didn't call me back, and they didn't do

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it becomes they didn't do it. This is not slang

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and it's not lazy. It's just how real American English flows.

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So the next time you say, didn't try relaxing your

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tongue a bit, I didn't know. I didn't get it.

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That's the rhythm of natural American speech. Hey, thanks for listening,

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and remember to follow and subscribe so you won't miss

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the next Happy English podcast and next Sundays Speak naturally

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in a minute Until next time, keep learning and keep

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it cool.