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What is Assimilation? Often confused with Elision. Today I'm going to talk about the difference between Assimilation and Elision.
When does Assimilation occur?
There are two types of assimilation.
Case (1): "When the sound of the front consonant changes due to the influence of the sound of the back consonant"
Case (2): "When it sticks to the sound of the consonant behind it to form one sound".
At our school, we teach each of these two cases as follows.
Case (1): "When the sound of the front consonant changes due to the influence of the sound of the back consonant"
Regarding this case (1), we do not teach as "Assimilation". Because it is not assimilated. However, in general, the combination of these consonants is often introduced as Assimilation. Here, we introduce the explanations that we teach at our school.
Example ①: "miss you" = " mɪ s j u: "
Pronounced as " mɪ s j u: " instead of bold s + j = " ʃ " .
Example ②: " Doe s sh e / I s sh e / Ha s sh e" = " də z ʃ i / ɪ z ʃ i / hə z ʃ i"
Instead of the bold "z" + " ʃ " "z" becoming " ʃ " , use " də ( z) ʃ i / ɪ ( z) ʃ i / hə ( z) ʃ i" and "z" Will drop out completely .
This is an Elision rule rather than an Assimilation rule.
Example ③: " Wa s sh ocked / He's sh ort" = " wə z ʃ ɑːkt / hiː z ʃ ɔːrt "
Instead of the bold "z" + " ʃ " "z" becoming " ʒ ", the phonetic symbol remains " wə z ʃ ɑːkt / hiː z ʃ ɔːrt " and the sentence reads "z" weakly. The "z" frequency is about 20% (we teach you to read z weakly).
Example ④: " She 's y et / Hi s w ife / Practice s y oga / I s y our" = " ʃiː z j et / hɪ z w aɪf / præktɪsɪ z j oʊɡə / ɪ z j ər"
Bold "z" + "j", "z" + "w" do not mean "z" becomes " ʒ " , but the phonetic symbol is " ʃiː z j et / hɪ z w aɪf / præktɪsɪ z j oʊɡə / ɪ z j ər In the sentence, " z" is read weakly, so the "z" frequency is about 20%.
Example ➄: "Thhi s sh op " = " ðɪs ʃɑːp "
The bold "s" + " ʃ " " s " is not pronounced " ʃ ", but is pronounced as " ðɪ s ʃ ɑːp " as the phonetic symbol, and both "s" and " ʃ " are pronounced firmly. ..
As in the examples ① to ➄, the rule of "Assimilation" does not apply at our school.
Case (2): "When it sticks to the sound of the consonant behind it to form one sound"
Let's look at the second "when it sticks to the sound of the consonant behind it to form one sound". This is the rule of "Assimilation" that we also teach.
Example ①: "Di d y ou / sen d y ou / hol d y our / nee d y ou / woul d y ou" = " dɪ d j u: / sen d j u: / hoʊl d j ər / ni: dj u: / wʊ d j u: "
Bold "d" + "j" becomes " dʒ " and finally changes to " ʒ ". This is an example where the front and back consonants are combined into one sound.
Example ②: "mee t y ou / miss ed y ou / no t y our / go t y ou / ask ed y ou / los t y our" = "mi: tj u: / mɪs t j u: / nɑː t j ər / ɡɑː t j u : / æsk t j u: / lɔːs t j u: "
Bold "t" + "j" becomes " tʃ " by consonants before and after.
In this way, Assimilation means that "the consonants before and after affect each other and change to another sound"!
At our school, we will study the second pronunciation of this Assimilation at the A2 level.
What is Elision?
On the other hand, Elision means that when two or more words are lined up, the consonant at the end of the previous word is dropped. Roughly speaking, if the last consonant of the previous word is "t" "d" "p" "k" and the beginning of the last word is a consonant, the phenomenon that the previous consonant is dropped occurs.
In addition to the case where two words are lined up, the sound of "t" and "d" may be dropped by the word alone.
Example: Bold part such as bu tt on, cur t ain is dropped
Our school will study this dropout rule and pronunciation in the 3rd grade, but since it is an advanced knowledge about "p" and "k", we are explaining it separately in the A1 grade and above.
There are many rules for Elision, and I will write about Elision in another article.
I explained the differences between them, but how was it?
By using these properly, you can get closer to the native pronunciation!
