8/6/2019 The American T Sound - American Pronunciation of T - T sound

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The American T Sound

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The American T sound is one of the common letter

pronounced wrongly by ESL learns. Indeed, The
American T is made by intonation and its position in a
word or phrase. It can be a little tricky if you try to base
your pronunciation on spelling alone. In this lesson you
will learn thoroughly how to pronounce the letter T.

The American T Sound

T’s with a non-t sound:

TH-/θ/ or /ð/ (no rules to know the difference)


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Thing /θɪŋ/
Then /ðen/

-TION- /ʃn/ (sh-n) words ending in –tion

Station /steɪʃn/
Creation /kri:eɪʃn/

Silent T- The letter T is not pronounced in some words

(you need a dictionary to learn which words):

castle
whistle
chestnut
Christmas
fasten
listen
often

(With T)

soften
mortgage
mustn’t
thistle
mistletoe…

(In the cluster TCH)

catch
watch
kitchen

Final T in many modern words with a French origin:

beret
ballet
buffet
chalet
gourmet
valet
depot
debut… (the final French -et is pronounced /eɪ/ )


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The American T Sound

American T Rule 1
Official T /t/ == at the beginning of a word, at the
beginning of a stressed syllable, etc.

A. If the T is at the beginning of a word, it is a strong,

clear T sound.

Tom, table, take, tomorrow, teach, ten, turn.

Thomas tried two times.
It took Tim ten times to try the telephone.

B. If the T is at the beginning of a stressed syllable in the

word it is a strong T sound.

Pretend, fourteen, itinerary, particular, attend

C. If the T is part of a consonant cluster (two or more

consonants together in the same syllable) wherever the
cluster comes in the word, the T will have an official T
sound.

Stop, train, street, star, connect, left, tilt, first, kept.

Exception: If the word ends in “nt” we often find the

Stop T (see below) in American English:

elephant, rampant, saint, (but an official T is also

common)

Note: grammatical words with a weak/reduced

pronunciation (often pronounced with a schwa /ə/) may
behave like just a new syllable instead of a new word, so
in the sentence:

“I go to work.”

The preposition “to” can often be pronounced with a flap

T (see below) because it sounds “goto”, so the T goes
between vowels, not at the beginning of a stressed
syllable (grammatical words have no stress), so it may 
sound “go-da”/goʊdə/ .

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For the same reason, the phrase “I want to go” may

sound “I wanna go” because the rule N+T=N applies
here (“wantto” > “wanto” >”wanna”). A similar
phenomenon gave us “gonna” (going to > goin’ to > gon’
to > gonto > gonna).

American T Rule 2
Flap/Tap T /d/ == between vowels (v+T+v) or R and a
vowel (vr+T+v), etc. (This is a strong and quick version
of D). The proper phonetic name for the flap T sound is
alveolar tap.

A. If the T is in the middle of the word, intonation

changes the sound to a soft D.

“Letter” sounds like [ledder].

Water, daughter, bought a, caught a, lot of, got a,
later, meeting, better

B. If the T is between vowels, (v+T+v), the same soft D

sound is made:

Peter, better, waiting, mutter

C. If the T is between an R and a vowel (vR+T+v) the

soft D sound is made.

sorting, quarter

D. If the T is followed by a vowel in the next word, the

soft D sound is often made.

“what about it?” = “wadaboudit?”

“part of me” = “pardov me”.

Exception: When the sequence is vowel + T + schwa +

N, the T is pronounced as a Stop T (see below) for
example:

“written” = /rɪt|ən/ (that is because the schwa

disappears in that position so the real pronunciation
is in fact /rɪt|n/, and the T doesn’t go between 
vowels anymore.

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Important fact about American T

sounds:
Rule 1 is more powerful than rule 2, so if we have a T
between vowels but it begins a stressed syllable, the
pronunciation is the official/t/, for example:

“atone” /ətoʊn/ (a-TONE)

“between” /bətwi:n/ (be-TWEEN)
“beating” sounds like “beedding” /bi:dɪŋ/ (BEA-
ding) because the T begins an unstressed syllable.

Practice these sentences:

What a good idea. [w’d’ güdäi deey’]

Put it in a bottle. [pü di di n’ bäd’l]
Get a better water heater. [gedda bedder wäder
heeder]
Put all the data in the computer. [püdall the dayd’ in
the k’mpyuder]
Patty ought to write a better letter. [pædy äd’ ride a
bedder ledder]

American T Rule 3
N+T=N (T is Silent)

This rule is not part of the American or English accent,

but you can hear it very often in American English,
especially in some parts of the country, when people have
a careless and/or quick pronunciation. This basically
means that the T may disappear in American English (not
BrE) after an N, so the word “wanted” may sound
“wanned”/wɑnɪd/ and “interesting” may sound
“inneresting”.

T and N are so close in the mouth that the [t] can

disappear.

interview [innerview]
international [innernational]
advantage [ædvæn’j] 
percentage [percen’j]

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American T Rule 4
Stop T /t|/ == used at the end of a word, etc. (we
suddenly close our throat to stop the air flow, but
make no sound; IPA symbol /ʔ/, called glottal stop)

glottal stop: noun phrase : a speech sound made by

briefly stopping the flow of air through the vocal cords.
“The ending sound of the word ‘didn’t’ is pronounced
with a glottal stop after the n.”

A. When a T is followed by an N sound (usually with an

unpronounced vowel in between), the T is held, creating
a “Stop T”. The “held T” is, strictly speaking, not really a
T at all. Remember, [t] and [n] are very close in the
mouth. If you have [n] immediately after [t], you don’t
pop the [t]—the tongue is in the [t] position, but your
release the air for the [n] not the [t]. Make sure you don’t
put a schwa before the [n]. An important point to
remember is that you need a sharp upward sliding
intonation up to the “Stop T,” then a quick drop for the N.

Written, certain, forgotten, sentence

He’s forgotten the carton of satin mittens.
She’s certain that he has written it.
Martin has gotten a kitten

B. If the T is at the end of a word, you almost don’t hear

it at all.

Put, what, lot, set, hot, sit, shot, brought.

That’s quite right, isn’t it?

In the exceptions we have seen, we already commented

two cases:

Exception to rule 1: The ending cluster NT (sent, paint,

environment)

Exception to rule 2: v+T+schwa+N = v+T+N =/t|n/

(tighten, written) But most of all, we find this
pronunciation at the end of words or syllables (about,

fitness)

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There are two exceptions (because rules 1 and 2 are

stronger than rule 3)

Rule 1: Consonants clusters have the official T except

NT, which may also have stop T in American English.

Rule 2: If a final T is followed by a vowel (example:

“but I don’t”) then it’s pronounced with the flap T (/d/:
“bud-eye don’t”).

When “T” has a “Ch” sound (tʃ)

The sound [ch] is represented by the combination TU in
two common suffixes: “-ture” and “-tual”. It can also
happen colloquially in the non-standard phrase “what
you” when the verbs “are” or “do” are dropped: “What
(are) you doing?” becomes “Whatchu doing?” and “What
(do) you want?” becomes “Whachu want?” More
standard examples follow.

“T sounds like a CH — I’m not sure I’ve come up with

a specific rule here yet. But I know it often happens in
words like ‘actually’ and ‘puncture’ but not every CTU
case, like ‘cactus’. It also happens a lot, though not a part
of the official pronunciation, in the phrase ‘what you’
when reducing by dropping the ‘are’: whachu doing?”-
According to Rachel from Rachel’s English.com

2-syllable words

capture nature
creature pasture
culture posture
feature puncture
fracture sculpture
fixture structure
future texture
lecture torture
mixture vulture
moisture

3-syllable words 
adventure
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departure
furniture
miniature
signature

4-syllable words

agriculture
horticulture
literature
manufacture
temperature

Make your own examples and sentences with words

having the “tu” pronounced like “ch” sound. Please feel
free to leave your feedback about the article in the
comment box below.

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