Put, it, on, the, desk. You know every word. And yet, the moment someone says Put it on the desk. in one go, you lose track of where the words break. The problem isn't vocabulary. It's assuming that the spaces in writing are breaks in sound.
Spaces don't mark breaks in sound. Spoken language doesn't pause after every word; it flows on in one stream. That's the phenomenon called connected speech (TeachingEnglish's connected speech guide 1). It's only natural that you can't catch it, and as long as your ears are chasing the written words, that mismatch won't go away.
There are four spaces. The sound doesn't break there
Put it on the desk. has five words and four spaces. But that doesn't mean there are as many pauses as spaces. The first thing to question is your own assumption.
You can predict where words are likely to connect before you listen. Just look at the end of one word and the start of the next.
- Put ends with the consonant t, and the next word, it, begins with a vowel
- it also ends with t, and the next word, on, also begins with a vowel
The final consonant slips into the vowel of the next word. That's linking, and it's introduced as a typical feature of connected speech (TeachingEnglish's connected speech guide 2). Mark it, and it looks like this.
Put‿it‿on the desk.
‿ is a sign that says, 'Don't expect the sound to stop here.' When you look at spaces, you can't help imagining small pauses. Remove that assumption first. How it actually sounds is something you can check with your ears.
Don't pick up words one by one. Listen in phrases
When you miss a boundary, taking out it alone or on alone to check it doesn't tell you much. The it you hear alone sounds different from the it inside Put‿it‿on. Connected sounds have to be heard as they are connected.
- Listen only to Put it on while looking at the script
- Listen to the same stretch again, this time without looking at the script
- Draw a vertical line where the sound breaks, and a ‿ where it connects
What you mark down doesn't have to match your first prediction. In fact, that's the interesting part. There may be a pause after Put it, or the whole sentence may come in one breath. Leave it as you heard it and compare it with the spaces — that's observation.
Why can is short is a different story from linking
There's another reason you may not hear something. Small words are spoken much more briefly and weakly than their written form suggests. Let's look at a scene where someone carrying a box asks where to put it.
A: Where should I put this box?
B: You can put it on the desk.
What A wants to know is where to put it. The centre of B's reply is on the desk, not can. Words like can have a strong form, spoken clearly, and a weak form, spoken briefly and weakly (Guide 1). In directions like this, the weak form is normal, and You can put becomes one short, continuous sound. It's not that can is inaudible; it's being said briefly.
Conversely, if, as in Yes, you can. in reply to Can I put it here?, whether you can do it is itself the centre of the answer, can is spoken clearly. The same word can change its shape depending on the situation. If you don't know that, you'll keep searching for a 'word that disappeared'.
- Linking: A sound connects to the next one, as in Put‿it. The sound is still there
- Weak form: A word like can is spoken briefly and weakly. The word is there
- Elision: A sound is actually not pronounced
So don't immediately decide that a word you didn't hear was 'elided'. It may simply have been spoken briefly in its weak form. If you lose track of can, rather than searching for can alone, listen again to the stretch You can put and grasp it by position — 'can is in this short part' — and the written word and the sound will connect more readily.
Before you listen again, decide on one thing to look for
Linking and weak forms both reach your ears in the same way: 'I can't tell where the breaks are.' But what you're observing is different. For Put‿it‿on, it's the joins; for You can put, it's how short can is. Decide which one you're looking for before you listen. That alone makes your notes more concrete, and English changes from 'something I know but can't hear' into 'sound whose workings I understand'.