Past tense ed sounds - Reminder

You may have noticed that in English, past tense verbs with an -ed ending are pronounced in three
different ways:

[t]

[d] or

[Id].
For example, if I say the past tense verb walked, as in, I walked away, what is the last sound that
you hear in the verb?

Walked [wakt]
1) The -ed verb ending sounds like a [t], Walked [wakt], even though it ends in the letter d.
What do you hear when I say:

smelled, as in, it smelled bad.

2) The -ed verb ending sounds like a [d]: smelled [smeld]
And when I say, visited, as in I visited New York City, how did I pronounce that -ed ending?

[Id] [vizitid].
3) The -ed verb ending sounds like [d], [vizitid].
*******
This lesson teaches you the three rules that explain the differences in past tense verb -ed
pronunciation. But dont be surprised if most Americans cant explain these rules to you! The truth is,
Americans make these changes in sound without even noticing.

Intro | Why the Sound Changes

Place your fingertips on the front of your neck, and pronounce the following words. What do you feel
on your fingers when you say the underlined sound?

vow | fake (vvv | fff)

zebra | snake (zzz | sss)

> When we pronounce voiced sounds, our vocal chords vibrate when we say those sounds. [v] [z].
Did you feel the vibration?
> When we pronounce voiceless sounds, our vocal chords do not vibrate. [f] [s]. No vibration.
This vibration or lack of vibration then carries forward to the following sound in the word. Therefore,
this vibration or lack of vibration explains why we pronounce the past tense of verbs
in three voiced orvoiceless ways: [t], [d] or [Id].

1) [t] final sound

Verbs ending in voiceless sounds [p, k, , f, s, , t] cause the -ed ending to be pronounced as
thevoiceless [t] (with no vocal chord vibration).

Listen and Repeat

[p] He popped a balloon. [papt]

[k] They talked a lot [takt]
[] th: She frothed a cup of milk [frawt]
[f] I laughed at the movie. [lft]
[s] She kissed a frog. [kIst]
[] sh: We brushed it off. [brut]
[t] ch: I reached around for it. [riytt]

2) [d] final sound

Verbs ending in the voiced sounds [b, g, , v, z, , d, m, n, , r, l] cause the -ed ending to be
pronounced as a voiced [d].

Listen and Repeat

[b] It bobbed up and down. [babd]

[g] He begged her to stay. [bgd]
[] She breathed loudly. [briyd]
[v] They loved it. [luvd]
[z] We raised her expectations. [reyzd]
[d] They bridged the gap. [brIdd]
[m] I claimed it was mine. [kleymd]
[n] They banned new members. [bnd]
[] She banged into the chair. [bd]
[r] He cleared it up. [kliyrd]
[l] I rolled up the paper. [rowld]

3) [d] or [d] final sound

Verbs ending in the sounds [t] or [d] will cause the -ed ending of a verb to be pronounced as the
syllable[d] or [d].

Listen and Repeat

[t] I visited the Empire State Building. [vztd]

[t] She edited the research paper. [dtd]
[d] We ended the game early. [ndd]
[d] He breaded the chicken. [brdd]

Why are these rules important?

Connected Speech [c+v]
These -ed pronunciation rules are particularly important, because in English we connect our
speech when we have a word that:

ends in a consonant; and

is followed by a word that begins with a vowel.

In this case, the way you say the verbs -ed ending will be heard loudly and clearly.

Example

He walked away [walkt] > He walk taway [hiy WAWK tWEY]

Did you hear that [t] in walked clearly?

(See the lesson on Connected Speech & Linking for more practice and explanation).

H-Deletion

The same rule of connected speech [c+v] occurs when h-deletion causes us to delete the h sound
at the beginning of a word.

Example

We raised her expectations [reyzd] > We raizd her expectations > We

raizdr expectations
We deleted the h in her, then connected the speech from raised and her, which became
raisder.
(Check out the lesson on H-Deletion for more practice and explanation).