you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 13 points 2 years ago (9 children)

are they? I just said "I didn't know that that was how it is" out loud and both thats sound the same

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    The A is slightly more emphasized in the second that. It's subtle

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (5 children)
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Could be. So you say them exactly the same and not an inflection shift?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Because you generally put more emphasis on the subject in English

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    In fluent speech, the conjunction (the first "that") is unstressed, and as a result some speakers reduce the vowel a bit toward schwa. However, if you told those speakers to carefully pronounce each word, I bet they would pronounce the conjunction and the pronoun the exact same same. A more common example of this kind of reduction is the word "to", which is almost always reduced to /tə/ ([tə] ~ [tʊ] ~ [ɾə] depending on dialect and surrounding words) in everyday speech when unstressed.

    Fun fact, you can reduce just about every unstressed vowel in English to schwa (if it's not already a schwa) and still be largely understood.

  • source
  • parent