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Unit 15: Towards Advanced
Grammar, news, vocabulary and pronunciation

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Session 5

Tim's Pronunciation Workshop: /d/ - /g/ assimilation

What happens when a word that ends with a /d/ sound is followed by a word beginning with a /g/ or a /k/? Tim explains...

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    Activity 1
  1. Activity 1

Activity 1

Tim's Pronunciation Workshop: Assimilation of /d/ to /g/

I’d love to be on the red carpet one day...

Tim's back in his pronunciation workshop. This time he's finding out what happens to a /d/ sound when it is followed by a /g/ or a /k/.

To do

Take a look at the video, then try the activity to do some practice.

 

Watch the video and complete the activity

Show transcript Hide transcript

Tim
Hi. I'm Tim and this is my Pronunciation workshop. Here I'm going to show you how English is really spoken. Are you ready? Come on, let's go inside. In English, we have an expression – man’s best friend. Do you know what that refers to? No, not beer. Dogs. A dog is man’s best friend. But not always. What would you say to a dog who did this?

Voxpops
Bad girl!
She's a bad girl!
The dog has been a bad girl!

Tim
Now, the word bad ends in /g/ doesn’t it? Or does it? Watch and listen again. Can you hear the /d/?

Voxpops
Bad girl!
She's a bad girl!
The dog has been a bad girl!

Tim
In fluent speech, a /d/ changes to a /g/ when it comes before a /g/ or a /k/. So 'bad girl' becomes 'bagirl'. This is an example of what is called assimilation. Here are some more.

Examples
He’s a really good cook.
Last night we had guests for dinner.
Can you print out the hard copy?
I’d love to walk down the red carpet one day.

Tim
Right, so you’ve heard some examples, now it’s your turn. You know the drill: Listen and repeat.
He’s a really good cook.

Examples
He’s a really good cook.
Last night we had guests for dinner.
Can you print out the hard copy?
I’d love to walk down the red carpet one day.

Tim
Well done. Now remember, if you want to learn more about pronunciation, then please visit our website, bbclearningenglish dot com. And that is about it from the workshop for now. I'll see you soon. Bye! Now, you know what, I’m not really that keen on dogs, I’m more of a cat person. Oh no, no, no that was just a joke - good girl, good girl, aaah! Oh, very funny. You're actually quite cute. Who's a good girl? Who's a good girl? Argh! Bad girl!

To do

Got that? Now try this activity to get some more practice.

The assimilation of /d/ to /g/ game

5 Questions

How many examples of elision of assimilation of /d/ to /g/ are there in each sentence? You decide...

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More on this topic

Tim's Pronunciation Workshop part 16- weblink image The Sound of English: Voiceless Consonants: Came Lower_int_U6_S1_past_simple.jpg

End of Unit 15

We hope that was useful. In Unit 16, Sian has a Masterclass on discourse markers - things you can say to make you sound more natural and fluent. In News Review and LingoHack you can find out which words are making the headlines - and Tim will be back with the pronunciation workshop as usual. See you there!

Session Grammar

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Session Vocabulary

  • Assimilation of /d/ to /g/

    In fluent speech the sound /d/ changes to /g/ if it comes before a /g/ or a /k/. This  helps the words to flow together smoothly - and it’s easier to say.

    Some examples of phrases where this might happen include:

    • He's a really good cook
    • She's a bad girl.
    • We've got a red carpet.
View full vocabulary reference

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