STRONG VS WEAK FORMS

Grammatical words are words that help us construct the sentence but they don't mean anything: articles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, etc.

These words have no stress, and so they are weakened. That weakened form is called "weak form" as opposed to a "strong form", which is the full form of the word pronounced with stress. The strong form only happens when we pronounce the words alone, or when we emphasize them. Weak forms are very often pronounced with a schwa, and so are very weak and sometimes a bit difficult to hear properly.

Sometimes weak forms are easy to spot, because we use contractions in the spelling to show it:

I am French (strong form)  I'm French (weak form)

But usually there is no change of spelling, only the pronunciation is different:

But  strong form: /bʌt/ weak form: /bət/

Tell him to go  strong forms /hɪm/ /tu:/ weak form: /tel əm tə gəʊ/

As you can see, the grammatical words "him" and "to" are unstressed and have a weak form when pronounced inside a sentence.

another example: I would like some fish and chips

strong forms  /aɪ wʊd laɪk sʌm fɪʃ ænd tʃɪps/ This version sounds unnatural and, believe it or not, more difficult to understand for a native speaker.

weak forms  /ɑ wəd laɪk səm fɪʃ ən tʃɪps/ and we can use weaker forms sometimes: /ɑd laɪk səm fɪʃ ən tʃɪps/ so we can see that the auxiliary verb "would" has two weak forms /wəd/ and /d/

Students who are learning English usually use only strong forms, and they sound very unnatural. English speakers use weak forms all the time, every single sentence is full of them, and students find it difficult to understand because they are not used to them, and very often they don't even know they exist.

Why do grammatical words weaken the way they do. It's all about rhythm. The way English is pronounced makes it necessary to weaken function words so you can keep the rhythm. 

Let's Practice !

Start with a text you are familiar with. Let’s use the start of the most famous Shakespearean soliloquy of all time:

To be, or not to be, that is the question,

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them.

Try these steps with the text:

1. Speak the text, making all the words their strong, dictionary form, even going so far as to dial “the” up to “thee”, and “a” up to “eh”.
2. Explore the text being very emphatic with your point, and emphasize as many words as possible, but not the function words.
3. Try to emphasize only one or two words per line, and reduce all the function words as much as you can.
4. Try eliding words together, like “That’s the question.”
5. Could you get away with a fully reduced weak form (à la informal register) in some of these words? “An’ by opposin’ end ’em.” How comfortable are you with that?
6. Now speak the text again, but this time try to find a balance—how far feels appropriate for you in reducing these words from their strong form?