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I am trying to learn American accent and I am practicing using this sentence:

Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. Yeah, well, actually, today was the first day I worked out since a while.

What I tried to do is:

  1. cancel the h and the t in **haven't*

  2. today becomes t'day

  3. was the becomes was a

  4. first day becomes firs day

  5. worked out becomes work dout

I uploaded my recording to these links:

http://www.filedropper.com/record0004

http://www.megafileupload.com/U1a/Record_0004.wav

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=63340961763448462845

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    We'd say "...today was th'firstday I've workedout in a while". "Since a while" is unidiomatic.
    – TimR
    Apr 7, 2015 at 22:25
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    Thanks! Just quickly, Worked sounds a bit like walked in that.
    – HarryCBurn
    Apr 7, 2015 at 22:33
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    I didn't listen, but: #2,3,4,&5 are correct. But for #1 you don't need to "cancel" any letter. Haven't is usually pronounced haven't. (And TRomano is correct about in a while.) Apr 8, 2015 at 5:39
  • 1
    @Marco Dinatsoli: npr.org/podcasts
    – TimR
    Apr 9, 2015 at 11:17
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    @Marco Dinatsoli: I'm not sure. I'll look into it. The You Bet Your Garden podcast is a call-in show where people all around the country phone in to ask questions about plants and shrubs. It will expose you to a wide variety of accents. The show's host has a strong Philadelphia accent.
    – TimR
    Apr 9, 2015 at 11:26

1 Answer 1

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To my ears, the pronunciation of "haven't" in this sentence is just about perfect, although the vowels in some of the other words sound a bit different from a standard American accent.

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