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Listen to a story about a strange encounter I had with a dog when I went for a walk around my neighbourhood.

You’ll also learn how to contract and reduce the verbs “could have been” into the sound /kʊdəv bɪn/.

Welcome to the English Teacher Melanie Podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced English learners who want to improve their English listening and speaking skills!

Each episode includes a story and a pronunciation tip. In the story, I use core vocabulary, the most common words in English, to tell a real world story. The pronunciation tip will help you understand natural spoken English.

You’ll hear the story twice. The first time, the story is a little slower than normal. It sounds funny because I used editing software to change the speed of the story and make it slower. After the pronunciation tip, you’ll hear the story again, but at a regular speed.

 

THE STORY

I recently had a very strange encounter with a dog in my neighborhood. The other day I decided to go for a walk to get some exercise and some fresh air. As soon as I closed and locked my front door, a dog appeared in my driveway and started barking at me. It’s not normal for a dog to be wandering around a residential neighborhood by itself. We don’t have stray dogs living outdoors on their own. I was really concerned about the dog & I wanted to help. He could have been far from home and he could have been wandering the streets for days without food or water.

Learn more: English Grammar: Using could to guess information

I tried to show him that I was friendly and that he didn’t need to be afraid of me. I tried to get closer to him to check if he had an ID tag on his collar, but he ran away from me! He ran up the street, stopped, and started barking at a man walking down the street toward me. I wondered if this was his dog, but then the dog turned around and started barking at me. I continued to follow the dog, and this time he let me get close enough to pet him. I noticed that his ID tag said his name was Thor and there was also a phone number on it. Unfortunately I didn’t have a cell phone with me. I tried to grab his collar and lead him back to my house so I could call the phone number, but he was too quick. He ran away from me again.

All of a sudden, I smelled burning wood, and that’s not a common smell in the middle of the day! There was a fire in someone’s garage! Thor wasn’t lost. He was looking for someone to alert to the fire! What a heroic dog! I called out to the man walking down the street to ask if this was his house and let him know that there was a fire. He called 911 on his cell phone, and ran into the house to see if anyone was inside. Three people ran out. They didn’t even know there was a fire in their own garage! Apparently some wood in their garage caught fire after someone had been smoking a cigarette.

Learn more: English Vocabulary: 911 and 9/11

With all this activity, no one noticed that Thor had disappeared. He had alerted someone to the fire and this wasn’t even his house! His work was done, so he headed home.

 
NOTE: I called the dog ‘he.’ I know that ‘Thor’ is a male name. If you know the sex of an animal, you can use ‘he’ or ‘she’ instead of it.

Yes, this is a REAL, TRUE story!

 

PRONUNCIATION TIP

HOW TO CONTRACT AND REDUCE THE VERBS COULD HAVE BEEN INTO THE SOUND /kʊdəv bɪn/
 
This transcript uses IPA symbols to represent sounds and teach pronunciation. Learn more about the IPA here.
 
Listen again to something I said in the story:

He could have been far from home and he could have been wandering the streets for days without food or water.

Did you hear me say could have been?

I contracted the two helping verbs could and have into one sound: /kʊdəv/

Since the verb have is just a helping verb here and not the main verb, it doesn’t need to be fully pronounced. It’s reduced. The h is not pronounced, and the vowel sound is reduced to the schwa sound /ə/, so it sounds like /əv/.

Sometimes even the /v/ is not pronounced at the end of have and the contraction is pronounced: /kʊdə/

Also, the past participle been is pronounced /bɪn/

Put all those sounds together: /kʊdəv bɪn/

Listen again:

He could have been far from home and he could have been wandering the streets for days without food or water.

This also happens with other modal verbs:
must have becomes must’ve /məstəv/ or /məstə/

should have becomes should’ve /ʃʊdəv/ or /ʃʊdə/

would have becomes would’ve /wʊdəv/ or /wʊdə/
NOTE: Sometimes even native speakers get this wrong! They hear /kʊdəv/ and write ‘could of’ or they hear /kʊdə/ and write ‘coulda.’ Be careful!