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Dusklight Posted 18 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

How important is it to pronunce the ending 'accent' in words?

Like the word 'first', 'last', 'point', etc. I often find myself leaving the last 'accent' out, so it becomes 'firs', 'las', 'poin'. How important is it to pronunce every single letter in a word. It's difficult when you're trying to talk fast.
  

Top answer

I do not think that the question you should be asking yourself is "how important it is", but "am i going to be understood by others"? I recommend you do your best in practicing pronunciation and listening to native speakers of English. You can use Television as well - It has a tremendous effect (and I am talking from experience).

— Anatbs

  • I do not think that the question you should be asking yourself is "how important it is", but "am i going to be understood by others"?
  • I recommend you do your best in practicing pronunciation and listening to native speakers of English.
  • You can use Television as well - It has a tremendous effect (and I am talking from experience).
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14 Answers
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I do not think that the question you should be asking yourself is "how important it is", but "am i going to be understood by others"?

I recommend you do your best in practicing pronunciation and listening to native speakers of English. You can use Television as well - It has a tremendous effect (and I am talking from experience).
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I agree with Anatbs.

I think that leaving out the last part of a word makes someone much harder to understand.

One reason for this is that there are words that are spelled almost the same way but have very different meanings. A listener may have to try to guess which word the speaker wanted to say.
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How important is it to pronunce every single letter in a word.
Provided the letter isn't silent, it's very important to pronounce every letter.

CJ
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Thanks for the replies!

Others understand me really well, so I don't have to worry about that. It just sounds better if I pronunce every single letter. "I'm the first to arrive." instead of "I'm the firs to arrive.". I'm not leaving out important last sounds that can confuse the meaning of my sentence. Like in "Look at that rock.", I wouldn't say "Look at that roc."
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Dear Dusklight,
Consider your sentence "I'm the first to arrive", it doesn't matter if you pronouce the word first like firs, because you will pronounce the sound /t/ of the word to. This is called "prepare and link (according to my book)." If the final consonant sound of a word has the same pronunciation as the initial consonant sound of the word following (or the
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Oh, so I'm actually doing the right thing there? Emotion: surprise
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Anduyyou only pronounce the second sound.

Some examples:
- help pack
- stick close
- this zone
- dark gray
- sit down
Hi,
that's not true, I believe.
I don't say this zone like it's thi zone or the zone. Sit down is close to
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Kooyeen,

With your Italian and its doubled consonants, surely you can do "help pack" with the double p!

CJ
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I try not to leave things out but it's hard as I think about the sentence, or rather the main idea, not the words when I speak. I say 'sit down' 'si down' as well. I just don't know when it's acceptable and when it's not.
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Yes, I believe the reason native speaker sometimes do it with some of the words is that it slows them down a bit.

One of the words I see them often skipping their last letter is the word (different)..

Many words have different meanings. ( skip the last letter and see how you sound, more like a native speaker . right?)



Another example, is the wo
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