What is a contraction? To quote from the Cambridge dictionary, it’s: “a short form of a word or combination of words that is often used instead of the full form”.
So: I am – I’m, he should not – he shouldn’t, who would have thought – who’d have thought (and you’ll sometimes hear – who’d’ve thought).
The apostrophe (’) shows that one or more letters have been left out.
Sometimes you have a choice – he is not – he’s not – he isn’t.
Contractions make the English language faster and less of an effort.
I’ve been thinking about contractions, because some of my students don’t like using them. Perhaps they find contractions difficult. Perhaps they’ve been taught English by non -native speakers who struggle with contractions themselves and don’t teach them to their students. Or maybe there’s another reason.
When I ask students why they avoid using contractions, they sometimes tell me that contractions aren’t good English. They think that serious English speakers don’t use them. One of my students, when given one of my dialogues to read, read it to me – but without contractions. She took all the contractions out as she read! She felt that that was the right thing to do with any contraction.
I wonder whether these students have two very different pictures in their heads:
2. 
In Picture 1, a group of streetwise teenagers chat in English that is so informal that it’s almost incomprehensible. Every possible contraction is used. But in Picture 2, a smartly-dressed businessman speaks in beautiful formal English, with no contractions at all. Most of my students want to be that businessman, or want their children to grow up to be him.
In real life, contractions are used in both informal and (a little less often) in more formal spoken English. Contractions are less common in written English, and especially in formal written English.
So should you use contractions or not? Does it actually matter?
I think it does. Imagine someone who isn’t a native English speaker but who speaks very good English. If they don’t use contractions in their everyday speech, nobody will ever mistake them for a native speaker. What they say may be perfectly grammatically correct, but it will sound wrong.
If you don’t want your excellent English to sound wrong, then use contractions. And if you want to speak fluent everyday informal English, why not read one or two books from our series: “50 Everyday English Dialogues” and “40 Business English Dialogues”. They were written by a native English speaker to help you to sound like one.
