# "Liaison"

*Practising “liaison” for every word connection*

## The Myth of Liaison

*Main article:* [the-myth-of-liaison](https://lang.gitbook.io/pronunciation-mastery/myths-and-facts/the-myth-of-liaison "mention")*.*

First of all, “liaison” doesn’t exist in English.&#x20;

*Definition of "Liaison":*

> ***Phonetics***
>
> *(in French and other languages)* the sounding of a consonant that is ***normally silent*** at the end of a word, *because the next word begins with a vowel*.

You can see that this does not exist in English, because the final sounds of words are always pronounced. Even if the final T is “dropped”, it is actually dropped downwards into the glottis, producing the glottal stop /ʔ/.&#x20;

If the final T were completely unpronounced — removed — a word would sound wrong: *cat* would become *cahh*, *but* would become *buhh*, *fit* would become *fihh*. This is not the case.

* Practise every single word connection that you can think of.&#x20;
* Even practise ones which you don't know if they exist!&#x20;
* Learn to pronounce each phoneme alone, [devoid of](#user-content-fn-1)[^1] any vowel sound before or after it.

Read through this list of word connections to practise the ways of connecting various pairs & sets of phonemes.

| make dinner = /kd/     |
| ---------------------- |
| brush my = /ʃm/        |
| have breakfast = /vbr/ |
| have lunch = /vl/      |
| walk to = /lkt/        |
| finish work = /ʃw/     |
| dog for = /ɡf/         |
| sleep for = /pf/       |
| of the = /vð/          |
| behind the = /ndð/     |
| among the = /ŋð/       |
| next to = /kst͜ t/     |
| across the = /sð/      |
| on the = /nð/          |
| twelfth /lfθ/          |
| -teenth /nθ/           |
| "what's the" = /tsð/   |
| is the = /zð/          |
| it's the = /tsð/       |
| with my = /ðm/         |
| can't sleep = /tsl/    |
| was lovely = /zl/      |
| the end = /iːjɛ/       |
| is studying = /zst/    |
| is she = /zʃ/          |
| next Monday = /kstm/   |
| sounds good = /ndzg/   |

[^1]: without
