Vocabulary Spotlight | "Didja"

In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Jack discusses one specific reduction of Did you: "Didja." Transcript: 00:00:01 Jack Welcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm doing another solo episode today. As we step into the vocabulary spotlight, we are going to talk about something called reductions and. 00:00:15 Jack This is a a kind of odd. 00:00:18 Jack I don't. I didn't know which category to put this episode in be. I think vocabulary spotlight is probably the best. 00:00:28 Jack What we're when we're talking about reductions reductions are words that we kind of smashed together. 00:00:36 Jack But they're not formal words, OK? And the ones that everybody knows are wanna gonna agada wanna gonna and gotta wanna want to gonna going to gotta got to OK native speakers rarely. 00:00:56 Jack Pronounce going to. 00:00:59 Jack As going to. 00:01:01 Jack We mostly pronounce it when we're talking as gonna. 00:01:09 Jack I'm going to get up at 8:00. 00:01:12 Jack OK, uh, we rarely say want to. I want to go to an amusement park. No, we say, you know what I want to. 00:01:22 Jack Go to an amusement park. 00:01:23 Jack Wanna. But if you look in the dictionary for wanna gonna and gotta. 00:01:28 Jack You're never going to find it because they're not words. It's not like. 00:01:33 Jack UMA compound word such. 00:01:37 Jack Book store bookstore. 00:01:40 Jack OK, that's a that's a formal word. You can find that in a in a dictionary with the definition bookstore. A store that sells books. 00:01:49 Jack But if you look in wanna WANNA. 00:01:53 Jack You'll never find it because it's not in the dictionary. OK, it's not a word. It's a reduction. That's what we call them reductions. So we're not going to talk about, alright? Used gonna there. We're not gonna talk about wanna gonna gotta today I want to talk about. 00:02:11 Jack Another one that I think can be. 00:02:14 Jack Is very common that a lot of teachers overlook, but students are kind of left confused because. 00:02:22 Jack They're they don't know what the teacher said, right? So this one is did you did you? So this is the title of today's episode, Didja. 00:02:33 Jack Did you have a good weekend? 00:02:35 Jack Did you have? 00:02:36 Jack A good weekend. 00:02:39 Jack Did you have lunch? 00:02:41 Jack Did you have lunch? 00:02:45 Jack Did you go to the mall? 00:02:46 Jack Did you go to the mall? OK. And what is that? Did you is a reduction of did in you again it's not a compound word. It's not a word. It's just. 00:02:58 Jack A reduction. It's just an easier way to pronounce it, and it's tends to be it's it's informal. You cannot write this in an e-mail. You cannot write. Wanna gonna gotta didja in an e-mail. You have to write it. Did you want to going to? Got to. 00:03:18 Jack However, when you're talking, you're gonna hear it a lot. 00:03:24 Jack I think students should understand that there's, and there's kind of some minor rules around this. For example, when D&Y are next to each other, when the a word ends with a D sound. 00:03:38 Jack And the next word starts with a Y sound. Native speakers, Native English speakers. Speakers tend to insert a J sound there. Did you did you? Did you? Did you? OK, so it you could you? A reduction could be. Did you? That's fine. That works. Did you have a good weekend? Did. 00:03:57 Jack Didja is a much shorter and more common reduction of did you? Did you have a good weekend? Did you have lunch? 00:04:06 Jack Did you go to the mall? 00:04:08 Jack OK, now if you so when you're talking, feel free to, you know practice this a little bit throw it in there. You know when you hear did you you know now it means did you did you did you did you now sometimes native English speakers will get really crazy with their. 00:04:28 Jack Production of did you? 00:04:30 Jack And they'll even make it short. 00:04:34 Jack And I'll give you an example here of I'll use the same examples. 00:04:39 Jack You have a good weekend. 00:04:41 Jack You have a