The ‘T’ Sounds

Lesson Goals:

(Shown on the top of the lesson page, and in the Youtube video. Use this to create chapters in the video)

  1. Identify the difference between the ‘T’ and ‘D’ Sounds
  2. Learn how ‘T’ is pronounced between two vowels
  3. Learn how ‘T’ is pronounced after the letter ‘N’
    1. Learn about the concept of stop consonant reduction, and how it applies to informal American English
  4. Learn how ‘T’ is pronounced when used as the last letter of a word

Intro

Sometimes, students find it difficult to understand the letter ‘T’. Many times, it’s used just like you’d expect – Enter.  In other words, like “Water”, the ‘T’ is pronounced like a ‘D’. And sometimes the ‘T’ can be much softer or completely silent, like when the word “Mental” is pronounced “Mennal”.

So in today’s lesson, we’re going to learn about the different pronunciations of the letter ‘T’, and how you can master them.

‘T’ Sound vs ‘D’ Sound

To start, we need to understand the differences between the ‘T’ and ‘D’ sounds. These two sounds are very similar, and your tongue will be in almost the same position for both. Also, both sounds are stop consonants, which means they stop air from exiting your mouth for a brief moment, so they can’t be held.

‘T’ is unvoiced – you should feel no vibration in your throat or mouth as you make the sound, and air will be quickly pushed out of your mouth. Your tongue should be placed at the front top of your mouth as you make the sound.

Want

Waste

Towel

‘D’, on the other hand, is voiced. So when you make the ‘D’ sound, you’ll feel a vibration in your throat and vocal cords. Your tongue will be in almost exactly the same position, but might be moved back very slightly.

For both of these sounds, I find it helpful to think of them as two parts. The first part is where you move your tongue to the correct position to make the sound, and the second part is actually pushing air out of your mouth to create the sound. We’ll return to that concept soon, but keep it in the back of your mind.

When ‘T’ is Pronounced /D/

Now, let’s look at uses of the letter ‘T’ that follow a pronunciation rule.

You might be wondering – How do I know when to change a ‘T’ to a /D/ sound? The simplest way to identify words like that would be to find ‘T’s that are between two vowels.

In the American accent, if a word has a ‘T’ between two vowels, we will usually change that to a quick ‘D’ sound. We do this because it’s faster for the tongue to move and make a ‘d’ sound between two vowels, rather than making a ‘t’ sound, which requires a brief pause.

But make sure you only do this between two vowels – One of the most common mistakes I see with English students is when they replace all ‘t’ sounds with ‘d’ sounds, so try to avoid that.

Variety → Variedy

Greater → Grader

Related → Reladed

United → Unided

In almost all other cases, the letter ‘T’ will be pronounced as /T/, or made silent. So if a word starts with the letter ‘T’, we use the /T/ sound, and the same applies if a word ends with ‘T’.

Stop Consonant Reduction

But, what about those words where the letter ‘T’ is skipped, or made silent? Well, this is because of a process in American English called “Stop Consonant Reduction”. 

When speaking informally, one of your goals is to speak quickly, while still being understood. And one of the purposes of stop consonants is to slow down your speech to make you more comprehensible. So, when an American speaks informally, we will often make some of our stop consonants much quieter, or skip them altogether. 

For example:

Want → Wan

Talent → Talen

Seat → Sea

To understand how this works, think back to how I divided the letter ‘T’ into two parts. The first part is where I move my tongue to the correct position for that sound, and the second part is where I push air out of my mouth to create the sound. Well, when Americans reduce our stop consonants, what we usually do is complete the first step for creating the sound, but skip the second step.

So when I say “Want” in an informal way, my tongue is moving to the position of the ‘T’ sound, but I’m stopping before I push air out. This creates the sound “Wan”.

But, we don’t do this to every stop consonant. If we did, it would be much harder to understand informal English, and it’s already hard enough for many ESL students. So, let’s look at the times when we reduce our stop consonants to speak faster and informally.

‘T’ After the Letter ‘N’

But, what about those words where the ‘T’ becomes silent, or very quiet?

This is the “Stopped T Sound”. One example of this is when we use a ‘T’ after the letter ‘N’. When this happens, we use the same technique I mentioned before. You’ll move your tongue to the correct position of a ‘T’ sound, which will stop air from exiting your mouth, but you won’t continue on to the second part of the letter. This quickly stops the word and creates the sound you want.

Let me demonstrate the difference with the word “Seat”: 

If I am speaking informally, I would pronounce this “Sea(stopped sound)”. I’m skipping the pronunciation of the final ‘T’, but if I don’t move my tongue to the correct position, I create the word “Sea”. Listen to the difference one more time – Sea(stopped sound), and sea.

Remember: This pronunciation only applies in informal settings where you’re speaking quickly, like to a friend. Let’s practice a bit more.

  • Spent
  • Plant
  • Grant
  • Front
  • Event
  • The front of the store was covered in plants
  • How late did the event go last night?
  • I spent ten dollars at the print store.

‘T’ At The End of a Word

Another time that ‘T’ becomes a stopped sound during informal English conversations is when ‘T’ is used as the final letter (or sound) of a word. This is very similar to what we just discussed about ‘T’ being used after the letter ‘N’, because that also commonly happens at the end of words.

Let’s see some examples:

  • Cot 
  • Mat
  • Digit
  • Swept
  • Boost

And in a sentence:

  • I love eating fruit at night.
  • She swept three times last evening.
  • I built a great house.

Remember, it’s okay to include the ‘T’ in these words – it’s just common for American speakers to remove them, if they’re speaking informally.

Review

Now we’ve learned the three versions of the letter ‘T’. It can be pronounced normally, like in the word “Accept”. Or, it can be pronounced like the letter ‘D’, when it appears between two vowels, like in the word “Greater”. And if we’re speaking informally, ‘T’ can be pronounced as a stopped sound by placing your tongue in the correct position but not pushing air out, like in the word “Want”.

Outro

I hope you’re understanding how this works, and I also hope that you can take what you’ve learned here and improve your comprehension of English conversations, movies, shows, and so on. These pronunciations are all very common, so make sure you understand how to use each ‘T’ sound to become that much closer to having the standard American accent.