Assimilation

Assimilation is when two sounds come together and change or melt into a new sound. Assimilations may happen inside a word, or between two words, when the final sound of a word touches the first sound of the next word (because when we speak we join all the words together). When speaking, people make many assimilations, most of them can only be noticed by the trained ear of an academic speaker and are not important for us. But there are 4 assimilations that are very important, because the sound changes a lot and the student of English can notice the difference and feel confused about it. See examples of these four assimilations here. (Multimedia - English)

• Check the different types of assimilation. (Seen in class)
• You may listen to some more examples here. (BBC Learning English)
• Do these Activities (Key next Friday)