It is just me? Can't hear small words during speech.

Question

Sometimes when I listening to spanish on Rosetta Stone it very hard to hear small like "era". Is this normal? When speaking in spanish is it common for people skip little words like "era"? I'm thinking it may take a while for me to hear the "era" in sentences with more training but I truly don't know at this point.

Welcome to SpanishDict, Doc. - rac1, Sep 7, 2017

Answer 1

Doc808, I think it's more of a case of you're not hearing them. It takes a while. Just the other day, a participant here asked if "tell the truth" was proper English. He was listening to English and expected to hear "to tell the truth" ("a/para decir la verdad"), but he didn't hear the "to" even after several attempts. I don't hear it a lot of times, and I'm a native English speaker. My brain recognizes it, though. Some peple say "to tell the truth", others... me.. say "t tell the truth." It's just te "t" sound without the "oo". "Era" is just one of those words that kind of blend in with the nearby words.

There was a thread about this very thing a few week back. The word's were "could've", should've", would've". What non-native beginning learner of English would hear "have"?

We're all guilty.

Thanks for the reply. I will continue to train my ear. I agree that era is one of those names that blends into other words. - doc808, Sep 7, 2017