Why Some people in American pronounce “with” like “wth”?

Asked Jun 09 '23 at 07:33

Active Jun 11 '23 at 13:13

Viewed 92 times

Eg. she lives with her parents.

I sounds it like: she liveswther parents.

The “i” in “with” is dropped

I add a audio record of "she lives with her parents.".

what I listened likes: she liveso ther parents.

edited Jun 11 '23 at 12:56

tchrist

asked Jun 09 '23 at 07:33

Tim

3

It's not particularly American. Lots of Brits reduce the /i/ of "with" to a neutral vowel schwa when it doesn't carry any stress. Almost all Anglophones reduce unstressed short vowels to schwas in at least some contexts. – FumbleFingers Jun 09 '23 at 10:07
1

You will note that, in your country and language, people have regional/social accents. – Greybeard Jun 09 '23 at 10:09
1

Sounds like a weak form. Do you have a recording or example of this? – alphabet Jun 09 '23 at 13:19
1

@alphabet That is of course the answer. The real question is why foreign people learning English are not being taught to use weak forms correctly, which makes it hard for natives to understand them and for them to understand natives all due to the huge mismatch in expectations about how English actually works in connected speech. See here and there for more, and more. – tchrist Jun 09 '23 at 21:00
And because /w/ is a semivowel, it's easy to go straight from it to the next consonant, and you don't need even a reduced vowel. – Stuart F Jun 11 '23 at 12:27

0 Answers0