Tricks of American T sound 2. – Glottal stop

In the previous post, I introduced the Flap T with the help of Jennifer’s video channel and I also mentioned Rachel’s and Mandy’s materials. It means that sound T can be pronounced as a soft D sound in specific situations (between vowels – or sound L and R, when it’s not stressed). T can be interesting in other occasions as well. You can hear something interesting when an American says these words: button, written, Clinton, mountain, fountain, sentence. In the dictionaries, you can see the “official” pronunciation of the “-ton”, “-ten” or “-tain” is /- tən/ or /-t^ən/ or /-tn/, but you can hear something else. This is called a glottal stop.

Tricks of American T sound - Flap T

I have a series on American English vowel sounds, but I think it’s important to speak about consonants as well. I would like to begin with the 'T' sound. If you have learned British English the American T sound can be very tricky for you as it can change in several ways. First of all I would like to speak about Flap T.  In American movies you can often hear the 'D' sound rather than the 'T' sound (like in water, or city). It is one of the characteristics of American English and it’s accepted even in formal speeches, however some teachers (even from the States) consider Flap T as lazy speech, but they’re not right at all. You can hear Flap T everywhere.

Today's idiom - Bend over backwards

Hi everyone,

After learning the idioms spill the beans, and pay through the nose  we’re going to speak about the idiom ”bend over backwards”. As I mentioned before, learning the idioms is a great adventure. I can’t show you all the idioms, I can show you some of them, in addition I can recommend some sources that can help you learn them.

Suit vs soot – Other OO and Other U sounds

Hi everyone,

Some weeks ago we began to work on American English sounds in pairs. We learned the difference between ‘sheep and ship’ (Long E – EE – and Short I – IH – Sounds) , and between ‘cattle and kettle’ (Short A – AA – and Short E –EH –sounds) . We also learned that in American English, long vowels are NOT consequently longer than short vowels. Long and short vowels are simply the names that have been used for naming them for ages. 

In this article, we will compare the other OO and other U sounds. I have to add that if you only read my article, it’s probably not enough. If you want to learn this topic entirely, you should visit the materials that I recommend you. Let’s get started.