Pronounce English Accurately

Video Text

We're moving steadily back in the mouth, now behind the teeth. The close-up camera isn't useful now, so I will dispense with that and use the speech organs diagram instead.

Feel with your tongue, or wash your hand and feel with your finger, just behind your top teeth, and you will feel a slight ridge, before your finger or tongue slides up to the roof of the mouth.

This is a ridge of bone, called the alveolar ridge. Put your tongue on it and make as many different sounds as you can without moving your tongue. What sounds can we make in this position?

Quite a lot - /t, d, n, l, s/ and /z/ are all made in exactly the same position.

Is this a surprise? They are a whole range of sounds which we would think of as quite different, but they are all alveolar, made with the tongue behind the top teeth on the alveolar ridge. More sounds are made here than in any other place of articulation.

/t/

/t/ is alveolar, and it's a stop or plosive - the air passage is completely blocked by the tongue until it's released with an explosion.

It's voiceless - there's no vocal fold vibration. This means it's a powerful, or 'fortis' consonant. Remember that vowels before voiceless consonants are clipped short:

feet

Compare voiced /d/, which is weak or 'lenis'. Vowels before voiced consonants are drawn out long:

feed

/t/ is typically spelt 't', or double 'tt' as in 'cattle, rattle, batting'.

/t/ is an extremely common sound, present in all the languages I have come across, so it shouldn't cause much difficulty. The main thing is that it should not be used as a substitute for /θ/.

Now for stranger spellings.

'th' is occasionally pronounced /t/ in proper names such as 'Thomas', 'Thompson/Thomson', 'Thames', 'Thame', 'Streatham', 'Thai/Thailand', also 'thyme', the herb, and Neanderthal is sometimes pronounced /-tɑːl/, as it's a German word.

'bt' is often pronounced just /t/ - the letter 'b' is silent. Examples of this are 'debt' /det/ and its derivatives, such as 'indebted' /ɪn.ˈdet.ɪd/, 'doubt' /daʊt/, 'subtle' /ˈsʌt.əl/ and their derivatives.

In words where the two letters are part of different syllables both the 'b' and the 't' are pronounced: 'obtain' /əb.ˈteɪn/, 'obtuse' /əb.ˈtjuːs/, and 'subtotal' /sʌb.ˈtəʊ.təl/ are examples.

Similar but trickier is the legal word 'to indict' /ɪnˈ.daɪt/, 'indictment' /ɪnˈ.daɪt.mənt/ and 'indictable' /ɪnˈ.daɪt.ə.bəl/, - there's no sound corresponding to the letter 'c' and the vowel is not what we would expect.

Conversely, the rather rare word 'indiction' is pronounced as we would expect.

Now for examples of words with /t/ in initial position:

'time' /taɪm/

'toad' /təʊd/

'tar' /tɑː/ - there's no postvocalic /r/ sound in British English

'toot' /tuːt/

'Thames' /temz/ - there's no /θ/ sound in 'Thames'; it sounds as though it is spelt 'Tems'.

And in medial position:

'atom' /ˈætəm/

'attain' /əˈteɪn/

'outer' /ˈaʊtə/

'potent' /ˈpəʊtənt/

'oppose' /əˈpəʊz/

And in final position. Notice the clipping of the preceding consonant because it's a voiceless consonant:

'tart' /tɑːt/

'put' /pʊt/

'suit' /suːt/

'boat' /bəʊt/

'rate' /reɪt/

In /tr/ clusters, the physical difficulty of moving the tongue from its frontal position on the alveolar ridge for /t/ to much further back for /r/ causes a noisy release to the /t/, as in 'train' /treɪn/, which is realised as [tʃreɪn], with a [tʃ] sound rather than a cleanly released /t/.

It is important to do this because a clean /t/ in /tr/ clusters is not expected and makes, for instance, the word 'train' sound like 'terrain', which is quite different.

In /tj/ clusters, there may also be a change to the /t/ sound, although here it is more optional. 'Tune' may be carefully pronounced: /tjuːn/, /ˈtjuːn.fʊl/, with a perfect /tj/ sound, or it may also have a bit of fricative noise: [tʃjuːn], [ˈtʃjuːn.fʊl].

It's never a real 'ch' sound though. The word 'tube', even with a [tʃ] sound is never 'choob' because the lips are not rounded for the following vowel.

Compare 'chew' /tʃuː/, which has rounded lips from the start, and 'tube' [tʃuːb], with no rounding of the lips.

And now /d/

/d/ is the voiced equivalent of /t/ - so it's a voiced alveolar stop or plosive.

/d/ is typically spelt 'd' or double 'dd' as in 'bed' and 'bedding', 'head' and 'paddle'.

Examples of /d/ in initial position:

'down' /daʊn/

'daft' /dɑːft/

'dish' /dɪʃ/

'do' /duː/

'dump' /dʌmp/

In medial position:

'ladder'

'reduce'

'idea'

'indeed'

And in final position:

'read'

'lead'

'bide'

'hide'

As with all voiced stops, /d/ can be difficult if your language does not have final voiced stops.

Remember always that lengthening the preceding vowel and reducing the strength of the final consonant is an excellent way of making final voiced consonants sound voiced.

Examples of the clipping short of the vowel before a voiceless consonant and the lengthening of the preceding vowel before a voiced consonant:

'feet' - 'feed'

'height' - 'hide'

'foot' - 'food'

'sight, site, cite - 'side'

'right, rite' - 'ride'

'mat' - 'mad'

Contrast /d/ and /ð/

/d/ is alveolar, and it's a stop; /ð/ is dental and it's a fricative. /d/ should never be used as a substitute for /ð/.

Spanish speakers in particular have trouble with the /d - ð/ contrast, because 'd' in Spanish is pronounced /ð/.

Here are some minimal pairs with /d/ and /ð/:

udder - other

dine - thine

side - scythe

Dave - they've

wordy - worthy

dither - thither

header - heather

Practice sentences for /t/ and /d/

'Time to turn in, Tommy', taunted terrifying Tamsin.

Telephoning tonight would take too much time.

Distant drums resounded dully during the demonstrations.

'Don't doodle during dinner!', droned the dim-witted dean.

/t, d/