Pronunciation Reduction Are

Why are you laughing?

The reduction of the word are is almost the same as the reduction of or. The sound reduction for are is a soft, short schwa and r sound combination. Say er three times. Keep in mind that the schwa sound is not just one particular sound. Therefore the reduction of are can sound slightly different than or. This depends on the words that are next to them.  What is also similar to the or reduction is the simple reduction to a simple, short r sound. As stated before, this depends on preferred pronunciation by the native English speaker. Here are a few examples of the reduction of are:

• What er you doing?
• Why r you eating?
• What r they saying?
• They er out of the office today.
• Our brothers r driving here.
• Where er the kittens?

Keep in mind that there are contractions that change the sound as well. In one of the examples above, it could have started out “They’re out of”. It still makes the same reduced r sound.

In the last example, where and are are combined even further. It makes the sound wearer as if it was almost one continuous sound.