ChrisFR
English spoken. Hi ! :) I was listening "All about that bass" from Meghan Trainor and I noticed that I cannot hear the preposition "To" in english spoken. Is this normal? Can you hear the preposition "to"? How to do to understand the prepositions and others things which are spoken. Thank for your answer :)
Dec 26, 2014 1:00 PM
Answers · 7
1
Prepositions are rarely stressed in natural English sentences, which means that in most cases the word 'to' isn't in fact pronounced like the number 'two' or the adverb 'too'. In most situations it's just 't' - the consonant 't' followed by a short, weak 'schwa' sound. So to answer your comment above, when native English speakers hear the lyric 'Boys like more booty to hold at night' do we hear 'to'? No, we don't hear the full word 'to'. What we hear is something like 'booty t' hold' at night. The preposition is definitely there. There is no doubt about this at all. It would sound very different indeed if she had sung 'booty hold' without the preposition. Believe us - it IS there, it just doesn't sound like you expect it to. If you're expecting to hear 'to', then you won't hear it. Listen again and you'll hear the 't' sound.
December 26, 2014
She pronounces "to" quite clearly throughout the song. The only time it sounds "weak" is in the phrase "to hold at night" - it's more like t', but it's clearly there. Was there a specific phrase where you suddenly couldn't hear it? Prepositions usually take a weak syllable, but they never disappear. Of course, the more you learn English, the more you'll recognise patterns so that your brain will fill in the full phrase even if your ears only hear the sentence partially.
December 26, 2014
this song is sung a little quickly,so you can't clearly hear the word "to".It's normal.You can ask your friends to say sentences which have the word "to" slowly.Maybe you can hear it.
December 26, 2014
Still haven’t found your answers?
Write down your questions and let the native speakers help you!