Hello English winners. Today we're going
to learn how to pronounce the T sound
like tier and the D sound like dream. It
is winter already. It's cold outside and
it's cold inside too,
so for this video - and future videos -
I'm going to be wearing warmer things
like this sweater, if you'll excuse me.
So, T&D sounds... to understand those, I need
to explain something called aspirated
and non aspirated consonants. That's just
a fancy way of saying that
some consonants are going to have an
explosion of air, like, instead of out
here 'T', like telephone, and attack - those
are two sounds that English speakers we
use a puff of air on, and with the T
sounds, you'll hear the aspirated
consonants a lot when the T is in the
beginning of the word and in the middle
of the word. Now, Russians watching this
video will tend to have a softer t sound.
Instead of that puff of air like
telephone and attack, it will sound more
like telephone and attack. Spanish
speakers tend to have the same thing.
It'll sound like the T stand is held
back just a little bit and then released
with less power in a non aspirated way.
So, instead of telephone and attack, a
Spanish speaker might say telephone, and
attack - and that happens when the tongue
is in front of the ridge of the mouth
behind your upper front teeth... where
English speakers, the tongue will touch
the tip of the ridge behind the upper
front teeth like "telephone... attack", so the
tongue goes just a little bit forward if
you're speaking Spanish. Spanish speakers:
if you want more examples of how to
differentiate between the T
aspirated and then the Spanish T, look
at
the example of the song 'Don't Cry for me
Argentina'. I'll put a link to two videos.
One is Nicole Scherzinger singing 'don't
cry for me Argentina' with a Spanish
accent when she says the words Argentina,
and then another video i have Madonna
singing the same song, and she'll use an
American pronunciation... so, instead of
'Argentina' it will be 'Argentina.' That way
you can hear the difference between
American T and Spanish t this will
also help Russian speakers. The T sound
is pronounced very easily: the tip of
your tongue touches the ridge that just
behind the upper front teeth... right back
here... first step, your tongue touches the
ridge, and then the second part, the tongue
goes down to allow air to go out of your
mouth.
"T, T, T"... then the D sound is
exactly the same.
Now there might be a little less air
coming out like instead of T it'll
be D, but there's going to be
vibration in the vocal cords, and so I
want you to imagine a spiritual guru
closing his mouth, going "MMMM"... and allowing the
sounds to go through the nose.
Alright? So, we're going to use that "MMM"
sound to pronounce the D, by applying "MM"
to the T sound. D. You hear the vocal
cords? D. Now, when you're pronouncing
it like a regular English speaker, it
will flow more naturally. You don't need
to turn this on first, and then say the
sound; you can just turn it on and say
the sound at the same time.
"du-du-duh" Alright? We're also going to go
over some words that will help you get
better at pronouncing the T and the D
sounds... Let's go to the words! So, here's
the plan:
we're going to go over these words. I'll
read one side and I'll read the other
side, and then we'll go back and forth
through each section and you'll get all
the practice you need,
ok? Let's begin. "Toe, Tear, Town, Tomb"
Over to the D words: "Dough, Dare, Down Doom."
Ok let's go back and forth now,
alright? "Toe, Dough, Tear, Dare, Town, Down, Tomb, Doom."
Here's a teaching moment for you: some
words that end with D and T are a little
bit harder to understand when you're
listening, because you don't hear that
aspirated content like "Town". Instead,
you're going to hear something that's a
little bit softer... we're going to have a
soft landing on these words, like the
word "oat". When you're hearing the word
"oat", connected to other words, you might
hear it sound like this:
Oat
You notice that there's no sound at the
end. So I want you to practice listening
to that and we're going to go over a
small list of words to help you get used
to hearing the T and the D sounds at
the end of words. Let's throw them up on
the board and get started. Here they are.
Let's go over them together... and at this
time I will pronounce the words as if I
were using them in a sentence and the
words were just flowing one to the next
ok? "tight, died...
Oat, Ode, Float, Flowed."
ok? Now, we're going to use these words in
sentences so you can get better at using
them in your everyday speech. Sentence
time. "I dare you to draw a picture of 10
people on a tightrope." "The train became a
tomb as it went over the bridge." "Down on
the floor, an oat pressed into the tip
of my toe nail." "Some people hunt elephants
for their tusks then sell them downtown."
"I would be vegan but fried chicken is
too delicious."
That's it for this video. If you liked
this one, be sure to check out some of
the other videos I have on this playlist
to help you improve your pronunciation
more. I'll also include links in the
descriptions, and possibly on this video
card, showing the two songs where you can
see the Spanish pronunciation of T and
the English pronunciation of T so you
can check those out. If you like this
video, please subscribe. Like and share it
with your English learning friends,
co-workers, and fellow students, so that
way we can all win at English together.