Assimilation of sounds is an interesting aspect of communication among speakers of the
mother tongue. Mastering assimilation is significant to understanding the daily
conversations while communicating, particularly with the increasing number of
international students as well as the refugees in Turkey. Thus, researching assimilation and
how native Turkish speakers talk have become a necessity. Therefore, this study aims at
analyzing consonant assimilation among high school Turkish students. The qualitative data
were obtained from eleven voluntary female students who were selected randomly from the
9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades of IMKB Multi/Program High School in Karabuk, Turkey.
The findings show that there are fourteen assimilated sounds that we observed during the
conversations. The number of progressive assimilations that we found in our study is
limited. Most of the assimilated sounds observed in this study are made up of regressive
assimilation. These findings could be pedagogically employed because understanding the
consonant changes resulting from assimilation will improve foreigners’ communication
skills and ease their adaptation to the Turkish society.
