Pronounce English Accurately

The Pronunciation of the '-ed' Ending

Video Text

The '-ed' ending, on the past tense of verbs and adjectives, has three pronunciations: /t/, /d/, and /ɪd/.

When '-ed' directly follows a /t/ or /d/ it is pronounced /-ɪd/:

wait - waited

want - wanted

collect - collected

end - ended

hand - handed

add - added

'-ed' is pronounced /t/ when it follows any voiceless consonant except /t/:

ass - passed; 'passed' is a homophone of 'past'

miss - missed

laugh - laughed

rush - rushed

cough - coughed

And it's pronounced /d/ after all vowels and voiced consonants except another /d/.

Examples are:

lease - pleased

ile - piled

seem - seemed

time - timed

tie - tied

Some adjectives, particularly in poems, are pronounced /-ɪd/ when by rights they should not be. The corresponding past tense is pronounced according to the rules I have just done.

An example is the adjective 'blessed', pronounced /ˈbles.ɪd/: 'Pass me the blessed thing!'

But the verb is /blest/: 'The priest blessed the congregation'.

Other examples of adjectives in which the '-ed' ending is pronounced /-ɪd/ are:

aged

dogged

ragged

learned

wicked

crooked

naked

wretched

Next Lesson: The Alveolar Fricatives, /s/ and /z/

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