How to pronounce "is that"

[elshaera]

Hi,

I was wondering how native English speakers pronounce the words "is that" so fast and smoothly?

Do they just drop the "s" ? and pronounce "ithat" ?
or they change the "s" & "th" sounds to "z"? as in "izat" ?

 

[emsr2d2]

We certainly change the "s" in "is" to a "z" sounds but we don't generally drop the "th" at the start of "that". Maybe it's just one of those sound combinations that we're so used to saying that it comes naturally but perhaps it's difficult for native speakers of other languages.

 

[jutfrank]

It would be very common for many people to drop the th sound at the beginning of that in normally paced speech.

 

[GoesStation]

Native speakers have no trouble pronouncing all the sounds in is that, but in everyday speech in my accent, it often comes out izzat or just zat. The tongue arches a bit, though, so the /z/ is longer than it might otherwise be.