how would you pronounce "to respond"

[Dav-X]

I just heard from BBC news that its efficiency savings are vital for it "to respond" to rapid changes in technology.

But here, the broadcaster pronounced the phase "to respond" like "juspond", but not "tu rispond". Is it a common assimilation acceptable in UK and America? And are there any rules for this assimilation? E.g. if i want to say "to report", can I simply adopt that rule and conveniently say it like "juport"?

[Harpoon]

they pronounced it with a "J" sound? like "jam"?

[shibo77]

I'm not a native English speaker but I don't know how you would assimilate an r- initial. You can use the unstressed version of "to" which is (tuh). Is it possible that you heard incorrectly?

-Shìbó

[geraldc]

This thread puzzles me, I've never heard anyone shorten "to respond" to "juspond".

I know a lot of people (including me) often shorten "did you" or "do you" to "ju" though, e.g. "did you eat?" to "ju eat?", and "do you want one?" to "ju want one?"

[Yuchi]

I bet it's a mispronunciation, I haven't heard anything like that here in America or from my British friend

[nipponman]

I don't think that that is standard english (or even nonstandard english for that matter). Even if, I were to say, "I did respond" it would sound just like that, not "I juspond." I don't know if that broadcaster was a foreigner, but if not, maybe it was a mispronunciation, it happens all the time in english (at least to me:lol: ) what with spoonerisms and everthing.

nipponman

[fenlan]

I illustrate the pronunciation of "to respond", both slowly and quickly, on the audio file. Basically you have the t and r fusing together as "trespond". The tr combination is called in linguistic terms an affricate, and I can see why a foreigner *might* think it sounded like a j, but it is actually a t and an r.

[nipponman]

I illustrate the pronunciation of "to respond", both slowly and quickly, on the audio file. Basically you have the t and r fusing together as "trespond". The tr combination is called in linguistic terms an affricate, and I can see why a foreigner *might* think it sounded like a j, but it is actually a t and an r.

Fenlan, this appears to be a British way of pronouncing things, I don't think I've ever heard this before in America .

nipponman

[fenlan]

Nipponman, I think you can see a similar phenomenon in the word "secretary". The US way is to for a more spaced-out pronunciation, secret-a-ry, but the UK form is secretry, eliminating the "a". The connection between a tr and a j sound may not be clear to all, but bear this in mind: a tr in Vietnamese is pronounced exactly like a zh in Mandarin. An English tr is not extremely far from a Chinese zh, although being clearly not the same sound.

[nipponman]

Actually, my aunts speak like that (they're from England) so I can understand your point.