Contractions in English language, Class- Seven,Subject– English

Look at the following sentences from the English text book of class-7, lesson no. 2, ‘Uruka Adventure’-
i) We will spend the night in our bhelaghar.

ii) When everyone is asleep, we will go and pick vegetables.

      
We can write these sentences in the following manner also, while keeping the meaning intact-
i) We’ll spend the night in our bhelaghar.
ii) When everyone is asleep, we’ll go and pick vegetables.

This changing of words ‘ we will ’ to ‘ we’ll ’ is called contraction. A contraction is a shortened form of a word or group of words that omits certain letters or sounds. Contractions are made by combining two words to form one word. In most contractions, an apostrophe represents the missing letters.  Usually contractions are made up of verbs, auxiliaries or modals attached to other words (usually nouns/ pronouns).  Let us see a few examples –

• He + would = He’d
• I + have = I’ve
• They + are = They’re

 

           In the above examples we can see that ‘would’, ‘have’, ‘are’ – all these are Auxiliaries that are connected to pronouns like- he’, ‘I’ and ‘they’ respectively to form the contraction. Lets look at the table below for the better understanding :

Contraction	Uncontracted	Examples
-n’t	Not	- Isn’t it wonderful to look at the sunrise? - I can’t draw nicely.
-’re	Are	They’re brothers. We’re coming from school. You’re my best friend.
-’d	Had, would	I’d like to take leave now. She’d cough and cold last week.
-’ll	Will	We’ll go to cinema on coming Sunday. He’ll bring the tickets.
-’s	Is	He’s a doctor. It’s a nice story.
-’m	I am	I’m leaving for now.
Let’s	let us	Let’s play football.

 

Pronunciation of contractions:
Contractions are common in English language. While speaking we have to take the note that, contractions are never pronounced precisely, or we don’t always take time to pronounce them.
When to use contractions:
Contractions are though perfectly standard form of language but is generally avoided while writing something very formal like- business proposal/letters, academic essays or any other professionally written documents. They are usually considered to be relatively casual. But the contraction ‘ o’clock ’ of the phrase ‘of the clock’ is even used in the formal writings also.

                          In literature or informal writings like- personal letters, diaries, blogs, emails, text messages, etc. writers have more freedom to use contractions. They are widely used in writing dialogues in dramas, stories, etc. Contractions are most commonly used in spoken English.