American English /t/ sound – American accent

The importance of pronouncing the consonants at the end of English words – video lesson on pronunciation.

Lisa Mojsin gives valuable tip on the pronunciation of English /t/ sound with the American accent.  American English /t/ sounds like /d/ in many cases.

The following video lesson will give you a good deal of advice in order for you to understand and develop your American pronunciation.

I’m going to pronounce a few words with different accent.

You have to answer which one sounds more American. (see video).

Of course, the second case of the spoken word is closer to the American English.

As you can see, the /t/ in these words sounds not like /t/, but rather like the /d/.

This does not happen all the time, but in certain cases.

Example:

Word: water

The /t/ sound is between two vowel sounds.

So if the /t/ sound is placed between two consonant sounds in American English, it turns into a sound called “almost /d/” or “fast /d/”.

It is called this way because the sound is pronounced very quickly and briefly – see examples on video.

Examples: auto, automobile, automatic, autograph, ability

The second case when the /t/ sound changes into the /d/ sound – is when a word ending with the /t/ sound is followed with a word that starts with a vowel sound.

Examples: at eleven, what a, what a nice day, what a good idea

Now let’s practice with a few sentences.

Watch and listen to the video and repeat after the teacher.

By the way, note that such a pronunciation is not considered a lazy or casual speech. This is a standard American accent.

And finally, I’d like to invite you to pronounce correctly the English tongue-twister:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?