INTRO: VOA Wordmasters Rosanne Skirble and Avi Arditti are back with a lesson in reduction.

RS: We're talking about the kind of reduction that takes place in English.

AA: Slangman David Burke joins us from VOA's Los Angeles bureau with some examples.

TAPE CUT ONE: DAVID BURKE

"One of them is 'you.' Instead of saying 'you,' we just say, 'ya.' Instead of saying, 'How are you?' (We say) 'How are ya?'"

RS: You won't find reductions in the dictionary. That means you have to listen closely to the way a native speaker pronounces the words.

TAPE CUT TWO: DAVID BURKE/SKIRBLE/ARDITTI

BURKE: "If I were to say to you, 'Didja eat yet?' And If I said to you, 'No, "Didju?"' We would understand that. 'Didja eat yet?' Did you eat yet?

"We talked about 'ya' which is reduction of you, but after the letter 'd' the 'you' or the 'ya' becomes a 'ja' sound always after the letter 'd.' (For example) 'Would you like to come to the movies?' '"Wouldja" like to come to the movies?' 'Did you eat?' 'Didja eat?' And, for some reason after the letter 't' the ya becomes 'cha' (as in) 'I'll let you come with me.' 'I'll letcha come with me.' 'What's that you have in your hand?' 'Whatcha have in your hand?' So, we have about four different ways of saying 'you' which is 'ya,' 'ja,' 'cha' and even 'ju.'"

RS: "Depending on context."

AA: "This is spoken English, right? Now if you were writing a report or something for work you would want to be more careful about using the formal non-reduced forms."

BURKE: "Absolutely. But, I would have to say yes and no, because reductions are used typically in speaking; however, a lot of times when we are writing to friends or especially in comic books we'll see the reduced form.

"True, in a formal report, you do not want to use reductions, but when we are writing a letter to somebody we might say in the beginning of the letter, 'How are ya?' and spell 'y-a' for 'ya.' That's pretty common."

AA: Also on the most-often-heard reduction list are the reduced forms of "going to" and "want to." They become "gonna" ... g-o-n-n-a ...and "wanna" . . . w-a-n-n-a.

RS: As in "I'm gonna be late," or "Do you wanna go with me?"

TAPE CUT THREE: DAVID BURKE

"And what's a little bit difficult to understand about 'gonna' (is that) 'gonna' is the reduction of 'going to' only when it is something that is happening in the future.

But when it indicates going from one place to another you cannot reduce it. For example, 'I'm going to the movies tonight. You can't say, 'I'm gonna the movies tonight.' Or 'Are you going to the market?' You can't say, 'Are you gonna the market?' So, it's only used to indicate the future, and it's really popular."

AA: Sometimes, when reduction takes place, two different words are reduced to the same sound.

RS: That happens with "and" and "in".

TAPE CUT FOUR: DAVID BURKE

BURKE: " 'And' is pronounced 'n': 'Rosanne n Avi.' The word 'in' ... 'Let's go inside.' It's pronounced absolutely the same. 'Put the pencil 'n' the box.' It sounds like 'Put the pencil and the box.'"

AA: "So someone coming to this country who is not used to the fast-speaking ways of your average American is going to be confused by these 'wanna's,' 'gonna's' . . .

RS: " ... 'Can'tya, 'don'tcha.'

BURKE: "Absolutely. In fact just now you said a very common reduction, 'used to' 'usta' means to be accustomed to, to be acclimated to. I'm 'usta' getting up early. He 'usta' be my best friend. We would never say, 'used to.'"

RS: "The question I have for you is that given the fact that Americans speak with reductions, how do people who speak English as a foreign language learn to tell the difference? How do they learn these reductions?"

BURKE: "The only way they can learn is to live in this country, and of course when they arrive they will be absolutely shocked and all of a sudden someone comes up and says, 'How do ya do?' not 'How do you do?' They are stunned and think that they have to re-learn English. Unfortunately, in a way, you sort of do."

AA: But there's help at Slangman David Burke's Web site,www.slangman.com.

RS: He's posting many of the reductions we've talked about today, and he's also written about them in his book called "STREET SPEAK 1."

RS: Gotta go, but next week we'll be back with Grammar Lady Mary Bruder. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

MUSIC: "Whatcha Gonna Do With A Cowboy?"/Chris LeDoux/Garth Brooks