How to pronounce "now and then" in English — Connected Speech Guide (IPA /ˈnaʊənˈðɛn/)

How native English speakers pronounce "now and then" (IPA /ˈnaʊənˈðɛn/) — connected speech rule, example sentences, and audio for GA and RP. Free. and→/ən/ (d dropped)

now and then pronunciation (IPA /ˈnaʊənˈðɛn/) — Elision

What happens in this phrase

and→/ən/ (d dropped)

Example sentences

We meet now and then.
It rains now and then.
now and then, I visit.
She calls now and then.

Common mistakes by native language

Japanese speakers

Mistake: Pronouncing "and" with a full, released final [d] — "now and[do] then" — treating the conjunction as a stable, fully-formed word.

Why: Japanese classroom English often teaches "and" in isolation with its citation-form pronunciation, and this fixed version gets applied consistently regardless of the fast, connected context it actually appears in.

Fix: In this idiom, "and" reduces to a bare [ən] with the d dropped entirely, linking "now" and "then" into one smooth phrase: [ˈnaʊənˈðɛn]. Practice saying "now-un-then" quickly, without a hard d sound anywhere.

Korean speakers

Mistake: Treating "now", "and", and "then" as three equally-weighted words with small pauses between each, making the idiom sound stiff and overly careful.

Why: Korean sentence rhythm tends to give each content word roughly similar timing, and since "and" is a short but grammatically important connector, learners often don't realize just how dramatically it should shrink in casual idiomatic speech.

Fix: Practice the whole idiom as a single breath group with only two real stress points, on "now" and "then": [ˈnaʊənˈðɛn]. "And" should feel almost like a connecting hum between the two, not a separate word.

Chinese speakers

Mistake: Giving "and" its full vowel [ænd] and even lightly stressing it, since idioms are sometimes memorized word-for-word for meaning without attention to native stress patterns.

Why: Mandarin doesn't have an unstressed-syllable reduction system parallel to English, so function words retain more phonetic weight by default, and this habit carries over into fixed idiomatic phrases like "now and then".

Fix: Let "and" collapse completely to [ən], never stressed: [ˈnaʊənˈðɛn]. Try contrasting a slow, careful "now – and – then" with the fast, natural version to hear exactly how much the middle word shrinks.

Similar phrase patterns

bread and butter — identical and-reduction to [ən]: Both idioms reduce "and" to the same bare [ən] linking form — comparing [ˈnaʊənˈðɛn] with [ˈbrɛɾənˈbʌɾɝ] highlights that this reduction is a general rule for "and" between two content words, not a one-off exception.
hands and knees — and reduces in a fixed compound expression: Another idiom where "and" is essentially always reduced in natural speech, reinforcing that native speakers rarely, if ever, use the full [ænd] form inside fixed phrases like these.
sooner or later — similar idiomatic time-expression rhythm: Shares the same two-stress, function-word-in-the-middle rhythm as "now and then", even though the connecting word here is "or" rather than "and" — both compress the middle word between two stronger beats.

Practice sentences

We meet now and then to catch up. (describing occasional meetings)
It rains now and then in summer. (weather description)
Now and then, I visit my grandmother. (personal habit)
She calls now and then, just to chat. (describing a relationship)
Now and then, we all need a break. (general life advice)

Notes

"Now and then" is a common idiomatic time expression meaning "occasionally", and it's frequently one of the first fixed time-idioms A2 learners encounter after mastering basic frequency adverbs like "always" and "sometimes". Phonetically, it's a clean example of conjunction reduction: "and", sitting between two vowel-final and consonant-initial content words, loses its final [d] entirely and shrinks to a bare [ən], smoothly bridging "now" and "then" into [ˈnaʊənˈðɛn]. This reduction is completely standard in both casual and moderately formal speech — pronouncing the full [ænd] here would sound noticeably over-careful, almost like reading aloud rather than speaking naturally. Because "and"-reduction is one of the most frequent and predictable patterns in English connected speech, drilling it through a short, meaningful idiom like "now and then" gives learners an efficient, memorable anchor they can extend to dozens of other "X and Y" expressions encountered later.