English

Pronunciation Made Easy: 3

Native Rules For the T Sound

Do you have problems understanding native speakers? Could you use a little help
from an experienced American teacher?

Give me 10 minutes and you will learn 3 simple rules that will drastically improve
your ability to understand native speakers. Listening along will really help.

First, lets test your listening with a short paragraph filled with variations of the T
sound. Im just going to read through the words quickly at first, pronouncing the
word naturally, and then a second time slower, with standard textbook
pronunciation.

Listen to the audio for this article

How did that go? If you understood the entire paragraph the first time,
congratulations! Maybe a different lesson on pronunciation would be a better use of
your time (unless youre curious about the rules behind it). If you didnt understand
100%, keep reading (and listening). This is an important lesson, and your English
will never be the same.

Now Im going to read the same paragraph two. First, my natural American
pronunciation, and second with the standard textbook pronunciation. Please read
and listen both times. Just so you know, this does not feel natural, so forgive me if
this doesnt flow that well.

I thought itd be better to write it out in a paragraph because we tend to not
understand a lot of things listening to it. Before we talk about anything, we all know
that it is fun learning Real Life English, on the internet with an international site and
community that integrates English into your life and lets you learn interesting things
along the way to inspire and motivate you to try your best. Its a really interesting way
to learn in todays world, and if you want to get ahead with your English and make it a
convenient part of your life, I cant imagine a better way to learn.

You can download the PDF & MP3 and listen at a more convenient moment

Why People Dont Understand the T Sound

The T sound is everywhere in its many forms, and whether people know it or not,
its one of the most common pronunciation and listening comprehension difficulties
for English learners around the world.

As an American, non-natives generally dont understand me when I speak at my
normal speed (even a lot of non-natives). I normally have to slow down for people to
understand me.

The 3 variations of the T sound that well talk about today are an important reason
why. Ive helped several of my students learn this lesson, and today Im going to
show you how its done.

Im also including some important videos, and for additional pronunciation practice,
youll find a short, simple, and effective study guide at the end. Lets do this!

The 3 Most Confusing T Sound Rules Explained

1. The Omission of the T sound in INT Words (and WANNA)

This rule is pretty simple once you understand it, and it will be a big help. Lets start
by highlighting the rule in this paragraph (yes, we will read it again!)

We all know that it is fun learning Real Life English, on the internet with an
international site and community that integrates English into your life and lets you
learn interesting things along the way to inspire and motivate you to try your best. Its
a really interesting way to learn in todays world, and if you want to get ahead with
your English and make it a convenient part of your life, I cant imagine a better way to
learn.

A lot of INT words in the English language totally omit the T sound. Some of the
more common INT words that I pronounce with this sound are words that have
INTER in them. For example, internet is pronounced innernet, and international
innernational.

This is a particularly important sound because a lot of languages, especially romance
languages have cognates that are hard to understand.

Internet = Innernet
International = Innernational
Intermediate = Innermediate
Integrate = innegrate
Interesting = inneresting

Exceptions: Internal, Intensify, Integrity, interject, Intuitive

An extremely common (but more complicated) example of this is the words want
to, which are pronounced wanna. This happens with going to as well, which
becomes gonna. Both of these are often considered a colloquial contraction (or a
sound morph).

Want to = Wanna
Going to = Gonna

Note: Native speakers often eat/omit the G in going, so when we run the words
together in speech it becomes the same gointo, and like wanto, the nt becomes
a nna sound.

2. The Stop T Sound

When a word ends in T, the pronunciation of the final T sound is often inaudible,
or cut off. The back of the throat cuts it off.

HaT, WhaT, FaT, PeTe, thaT, feeT

CanT, DoesnT, ShouldnT, WonT (All nt Contractions)

Lets go through that paragraph again and illustrate the examples. I have to speak
slower on this sound so I dont make the American D sound (rule #3):

Before we talk about anything, we all know that it is fun learning Real Life English, on
the internet with an international site and community that integrates English into
your life and lets you learn interesting things along the way to inspire and motivate
you to try your best. Its a really interesting way to learn in todays world, and if you
want to get ahead with your English and make it a convenient part of your life, I cant
imagine a better way to learn.

This one is a surprise to most people, and although its simple to understand and
listen for, it may be the most difficult of all of these to pronounce. Most English
learners actually have to learn to make a new sound in their throat.

One thing to keep in mind, as well talk about below (in #3, the American T
Sound) is that when this word is followed by another word that ends with a vowel
(i.e. Cat and Dog), then the T at becomes a D (Cad an Dog).

3. The American T sound (also known as Tap or Flap T)

Lets

start

with

little

text

to

illustrate

this

point:

I thought itd be better to write it out in a paragraph because we tend to not

understand a lot of things listening to it. Before we talk about anything, we all know
that it is fun learning Real Life English on the internet with an international site and
community that integrates English into your life and lets you learn interesting things
along the way to inspire and motivate you to try your best. Its a really interesting way
to learn in todays world, and if you want to get ahead with your English and make it a
convenient part of your life, I cant imagine a better way to learn.

In American English (as well as Canadian, and lot of other accents) whenever you
have a t sound in between two vowel sounds, the T becomes a soft d. Observe the
following words. Lets look at a few examples. Vowels sounds in red, the Flap T
sound is underlined.

Better, Later, Auto, Peter, Totally, British

The first important thing to keep in mind is that the letter doesnt necessarily need
to be a vowel. Here are a few words that employ the the same rule as above, but
while they arent spelled with vowels on both sides, they employ the vowel sound
on both sides.

Daughter, Seattle, Beatles

Even though the T in daughter isnt surrounded by vowel letters (A,E,I,O,U), it
employs the American D/Flap T sound (and sometimes British). Because the gh is
silent, the t is still the au for a vowel sound,(dah-der). The same is true for
Seattle and Beatle, as the L in many le words oftentimes carries the ul.

Remember, its not the spelling the determines the pronunciation, but the sound.
The word Pete, for example, has a hard T sound, but if you add an r to say
Peter, the T

The second important thing to note is that this same rule applies with words we run
together. The best way to illustrate this is with an example.

If I say the word cat alone, the T does not acquire D sound, but if I say Cat AND
Dog, the pronunciation becomes Cad-an-dog. This happens all the time.

CaT and Dog = Cad-an-dog
FaT and Tall = Fad-an-tall

The final variation of the flap T sound is that the above tendency (with separate
words like cad-an-dog) also happens with words that end with an n sound. As
mentioned above, Americans regularly eat/omit the final G on ing ending
words, and with a lot of other words that end with an n.

For example Im working tomorrow is often pronounced Im workin domorrow

in American English.

Im working Tomorrow = Im workin da-morrow
Im going to college next year = Im goin da college next year

Variations: Neglect our, R Sound (better to), F sound, Inda-the Wild

How to Make These Sounds a Permanent Part of Your English

Even though the great majority of English schools dont teach this, its very clear that
these sounds permeate the English language, and even more in American English.

A lot of grammarticians say that some of these sounds are not correct English, but
thats complete nonsense. Well, if thats true, than almost everything you hear in
songs, movies, and TV is incorrect English.

So, how much of this should you learn? If youre serious about your English fluency,
it is absolutely essential for you to listen and understand.

First of all, learning to understand these sounds will make a huge impact on your
listening comprehension.

Do you need to pronounce these sounds in your English? Not exactly, but it would
definitely help your fluency.

To pronounce the T sound without these rules is correct, and people will
understand. I tell my students that the first and most important thing is to listen
and understand. When you open your ears to these sounds, you will start to
understand a lot more, and this tends to naturally influence your pronunciation.

But, if you want to play around with pronunciation and learn to imitate native
speakers, this will probably facilitate a higher level of fluency and impress native
speakers.

If you want to learn more about Powerful Native Pronunciation Secrets, we have a
few simple and easy to understand videos that condense the very of Real Life
Englishs methodology into a simple and easy to digest format.

Ill also link a few more articles on pronunciation below, and I would also love to
invite you to join thousands of English teachers and learners just like you in our
world famous Real Life English international English Community. We also have a
podcast that were pretty proud of. Take care!

More Texts on Pronunciation:

7 Tips to Drastically Improve Your Pronunciation

How to Reduce Your Accent in English
Improve Your English with Tongue Twisters
Top 5 Mispronunciations Made by Brazilians