wanna

[matilde50]

sorry, what means wanna?

thanks

[Devil's tear]

It means want to
but it's an american accent.

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by matilde50

sorry, what means wanna?

thanks

Hello Matilda,

All speech gets compressed so that what you see on paper as writing is virtually unrecognizable in speaking. ESLs must learn how these sounds are actually produced for normal everyday speech.

Here are but a few examples:

I/You/We/They wanna ... = I/You/We/They want to ...
He/She wansta ... = He/She wants to ...

D'ya wanna go ta the movies? = Do you want to go to the movies?

Wenjya go to London? = When did you go to London?

[rewboss]

It's not just American speech -- you often hear it in Britain too.

In normal speech, as riverkid says, we often speak very quickly, and we don't say every letter.

In Italian you have the same thing, but you probably don't know this. For example, the Italian word "notte" was originally "nocte", but people stopped saying the "c". Another example: You don't say "de il", you say "del".

But these examples are now correct for written Italian. "Wanna" is not good for formal written English. It's best to write "want to".

This is the same with "gonna", which means "going to". But also, you can only say "gonna" when it's used for the future: "I'm gonna write that letter." You can't use it when you really mean "go": "I'm going to Rome."

[LwyrFirat]

Doesn't it also stand for "want a" , apart from "want to" ?

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by LwyrFirat

Doesn't it also stand for "want a" , apart from "want to" ?

Yuppers, it shorely does, L. Good addition.

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by rewboss

This is the same with "gonna", which means "going to". But also, you can only say "gonna" when it's used for the future: "I'm gonna write that letter." You can't use it when you really mean "go": "I'm going to Rome."

I don't quite follow the distinction, RB. Unless you mean that "I'm going to Rome" relates to someone in the actual process of travelling.

Otherwise, both "be going to" & "the present continuous for the future" are used to describe future events.