Speaking English: How to Use Reductions

Learn to pronounce “for” correctly out of context to sound like a native speaker quickly.

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Video Transcript:

It’s so simple, but most native speakers don’t think about it at all, and most non-native speakers are taught the wrong pronunciation of the most common and most simple words in American English. 

Today we’re having fun teaching Americans things they didn’t know about their own language, and we’ll make sure you know the most common pronunciation of English reductions.

Were you taught that these two words are pronounced the same? If not, wow, bravo to your teacher. If you ask most native speakers how they’re pronounced, they’ll say: How do you say this word?

For, four.

What about you?

For.

And you know what, this word too.  Let’s see, are all three the same?

Right now?

Yeah.

For, four and fore.

A non-native speaker if someone came up and said excuse me, how’s this word pronounced? Then you say what you would say, okay? So.

For, four, fore.

Are you the same John?

Yeah.

But the thing is, even though these people all said all three are FOR, none of them pronounced this one that way when I asked them to put it in a sentence. And that’s because this is one of the most common reductions in American English. It’s not ‘for’. But it’s actually [fər]. What? Yes.

Be sure to download my sounds of American English Cheat Sheet,  it’s free. It’s an illustrated reference guide for you for all the American English sounds including the phonetic symbols you need to know. Link here and in the video description.

For. Said so quickly said with basically no vowel. One of my students was married to an American and she told him that I taught her the pronunciation is ‘for’ and he said, “that’s wrong. I don’t say it that way.” And then she noticed later, he did say it that way. When we change or drop a sound like this, it’s called a reduction, and American English is full of them. When you use reductions in your own speech, you sound more natural and you’re easier to understand. When you study them, your listening comprehension improves. So let’s hear these native speakers say some sentences.

I’m bringing an umbrella for the rain.

For the rain. So natural. For the rain. Not for, but for, for, for the rain. “For Agnes’s birthday, we had cake.”

For Agnes’s birthday. For, not FOR. 

Is this gift for me? 

It is.

For me? For me? For, for.

Let’s wait for the car to pass. Because like why let him ruin my audio. 

Right?

Wait for the car to pass. Wait for, for. Did you notice ‘to’ was also reduced? It wasn’t ‘to’. It was ‘duh’. Car-duh.

Car to pass. Let’s wait for the car to pass.

Car-duh pass. Wait for the car-duh pass. Okay, now, you might be thinking, why does this matter? Two reasons. First, if you know about reductions and you study them, you’ll understand them, and then it’s really going to improve your listening comprehension of fast, native English.

Second, believe it or not, using reductions will make you easier to understand. The contrast of unstressed reduced words with clear, stressed words creates the rhythm of American English. And a familiar rhythm really impacts how easily other speakers will understand you. It’s actually better than each word being fully pronounced.  

Not only is that not very natural, but if some of your sounds are a little bit off, it can be pretty hard to understand because we don’t have the rhythm to anchor and guide us.  

Wait for the car to pass. Wait for the car to pass. That rhythm helps us get the sentence.

Let’s wait for the car to pass. Let’s wait for the car to pass.

Four, F-O-U-R, does not reduce. It’s a word that will be clear in a sentence.

Oh yeah, I played tennis four days ago.

Four days ago.

Four days ago. F-O-U-R, not reduced. Also, this word does not reduce. ‘fore’, it’s not very common in conversational English. It means forward.

What’s yours?

I have four children.

Yes you do.

Four children, four, no reduction. F-O-R, for. Now, like I said before, native speakers aren’t taught reductions, because we learn speaking first. So we just naturally do them. We’re not even aware of it.

We had sauerkraut for lunch.

Uh-huh.

So, Audrey, you actually said for lunch.

For lunch.

Right?

Now, you told me that this was pronounced for.

Oh.

Did you know like would you ever teach anybody that this word is pronounced for?

For.

Would you ever tell me that.

No.

Yet, like that’s probably how you say it almost every time you speak.

Okay, so, something funny happened when my niece was making up a sentence with F-O-U-R:

Does anyone know what these four pies are for?

They’re for me.

Yes.

She used both F-O-U-R and F-O-R, but she didn’t do the reduction.    

Does anyone know what these four pies are for? 

Are for? For? Not reduced, but why? I just told you to reduce it! Okay, there is one exception. We don’t reduce the last word in a sentence. F-O-R was the last word, and it wasn’t reduced. My mom also did this in her sentence.

What is this for?

Mmm, nice.

I love when native speakers become aware of this and learn something new about their own language.

Okay now I don’t know if you guys noticed but when you are being conversational, you actually said for.

For.

Yep.

I noticed that.

You did notice that?

Yeah.

Is this for me? 

For me.

Yeah, right? For dinner, this is for New Year’s Eve. Isn’t it funny that we think that it’s four.

Right? 

That’s what we would tell somebody. 

Right? 

But it’s actually, we never actually say it that way.

Ever.

Weird.

Almost never. Actually if it’s the end of the sentence you said, “What are these four pies for?”

The end of a sentence, you didn’t. 

Kind of pronounce it that way.

Right.

Wow, Interesting.

Anyway, that’s just a little funny pronunciation thing because people are taught that this is for and then when they get into real life English and they’re not hearing it as that and their pronunciation of it is more clear then it can lead to just confusion.

Anyway, fər.

Thank you guys for joining me for this video.

For this video.

Now, every time I teach a reduction, I  have some haters. We all have haters. And my haters say things like “I can’t believe you’re teaching this wrong, lazy English! People need to speak proper English!”

But the thing is, reductions are a part of proper English. No English speaker fully pronounces every word, it’s just not the rhythm of our language.

So let’s look at some more formal talks. Most of the time, you’ll still hear this reduction. Here are four examples. F-O-U-R, Four. Four examples of ‘fər’.

For me, precision medicine comes from a very special place.

For me– 

Not just for you, but for me.

For you–

For me–

It’s premature for us to say that…

For us– 

Now our usual tactics for tackling problems like these…

For tackling–

I hope I’ve convinced you. Most native speakers, though they would say this word is pronounced ‘for’, say ‘fər’. If you want to further explore the reductions in American English, I encourage you to check out my series on the 100 most common words in English. It’s absolutely crazy how many of them reduce. And if you want to train those words in sentences, check out my online school Rachel’s English Academy. 

I have a course on the 500 most common words in American English and of course it includes a bunch of training audio so you can really imitate those reductions. Be sure to subscribe here on YouTube, with notifications on, I love being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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