This podcast is the first of a series of four podcasts designed to help learners of English better understand spoken, fast English.

English is a "stress-timed" language. That is, the individual words in English are often not fully pronounced when the stress of the sentence does not fall on the word. Common examples are "I wanna go" or "Are ya gonna tell me?" The important parts of the sentence (typically the verb and the object) are stressed, while the grammar part (-ing, to) receive no stress. The parts with no stress usually turn into the "schwa" unaccented vowel sound.

In this podcast, we will practice reducing common verbs such as "have," "want," and "got." In the second podcast, we will practice a full sentence using these verbs. The third podcast of the series will feature common pronoun reductions.

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