Hello and welcome! My name is Ganesh I'm from LearnEnglishLab.com and
In this lesson I'm going to teach you how to pronounce -ed endings correctly.
Now we commonly find these in the past tense forms of verbs
Of course we do find them in some adjectives as well
But mostly these are found in the past simple and the past participle forms of regular verbs.
Alright, now when you have a verb with with an -ed ending,
it can be pronounced in one of three ways - either as /Id/, /t/ or /d/
as in started - here the sound is started - /Id/
It's not startID but it's a little softer - started
In this word its jumped, jumped - /t/ Or cared, cared - /d/
Now, which way you should pronounce the -ed ending will depend on the last sound in the word
and we will get into the rules in a moment
but these are the three ways that you can pronounce the -ed ending
Alright let's now look at the rules. Let's do the easy one first
If the last sound in a word is /t/ or /d/ then the -ed ending is pronounced /Id/
like for example - waited, waited tasted, tasted
In both of these words, the last sound before the -ed ending is /t/ so we use /Id/
Similarly, in these two words the last sound is /d/ so landed, landed or decided, decided
So if the last sound is /t/ or /d/ then the -ed ending is pronounced /Id/
Before we move on to the next two rules, there's an important concept that you need to understand.
And that is the concept of voice
No, I'm not talking about our voice when we speak
In English we say that some sounds have voice and some sounds don't have voice
If a sound has voice, we call it a 'voiced' sound and if it doesn't have voice, we call it a 'voiceless' sound.
But what does 'voice' mean?
To understand what it means, I'd like you to take two fingers - your index and your middle finger
And I'd like you to put them on your throat like so
Now say /b/, /b/
When you say /b/ you should be feeling a slight vibration in your fingers coming from your throat
That vibration is called voice
So we can say that the sound /b/ is a voiced sound. That is, it has voice.
So what about voiceless sounds? Well once again, put your fingers on your throat
And this time you're going to say that the sound /s/
but you're going to say it continuously - /s/
If you said it did you feel a vibration in your throat?
Well if you said it correctly, you would have felt no vibration
That's why we say that the sound /s/ is voiceless - or it has no voice
Similarly - /sh/
Like you're telling someone to be quiet - /sh/ Again, no voice.
If the last sound in a word is voiceless then the -ed ending is pronounced /t/
For example - touched, touched. This sound /ch/ is voiceless, so touched - /t/
pushed, pushed - here the last sound is /sh/ so pushed
laughed, laughed - notice here that the last two letters are 'gh' but the sound is /f/ - so laughed
Now before we move on I want to ask you a question - why do we do this?
If the last sound is unvoiced or voiceless, why do we say /t/ for the -ed ending?
Well it's simply because the /t/ sound is also a voiceless sound
So it makes it easier for us to say the -ed ending
Alright so in the second row - liked, liked
dressed, dressed
clapped, clapped
So when the last sound is voiceless we say /t/ the -ed ending
And when the last sound is voiced, the -ed ending is pronounced /d/
These are all some examples of voiced sounds - /g/ /j/ /b/ /v/ /z/ etc
And there are actually more voice sounds in English - these are just some examples
And any vowel sound is automatically voiced
Like if you say 'o' or 'a' or 'e' you cannot say it without voicing it
So any vowel sound will always have voice
OK, let's look at some examples again
Hugged - in the word hug, the last sound is /g/ so hugged, hugged
played, played
encouraged - here the last sound is /j/ which is voiced, so encouraged
boiled
What about this word? How would you pronounce it?
Well the fact that I've put it in the voiced category should give you a clue
Because when we say the word use as a verb, its use, use
This 's' becomes /z/ - so use. The past tense form is used, used.
loved, loved
Alright so now you know the three ways that we pronounce the - ed endings
Before we finish this lesson, in a moment, I'm going to give you a test
to see if you can pronounce -ed endings correctly
Before doing that, let's quickly recap what we've learned today
If the last sound in a word is /t/ or /d/ then the -ed ending is pronounced /Id/
If the last sound is voiceless, then we say /t/ for the -ed ending
And if the last sound is voiced, the -ed ending is pronounced /d/
Alright, over here I have 10 words and
I'd like you to come up with the pronunciation of the -ed endings
To do this, take a moment and in each word identify the last sound.
For example in the first one, the last sound is /k/
And then think about whether you would use /Id/ /t/ or /d/
Alright if you need, pause the video here for a moment
Think about your answers and then, I will give you the answers.
Alright let's discuss the answers
In number one, the last sound is /k/ which is unvoiced, so the -ed ending is pronounced /t/
walked, walked
In number two, the last sound is /w/ which is voiced, so the -ed ending becomes /d/
So borrowed, borrowed
In number three - this is a tricky one. A lot of people get this wrong.
What's the last sound here?
Well the last sound is /dh/ because the word is breathe, breathe.
So, the last sound is /dh/ and /dh/ is voiced so it's pronounced /d/
So breathed, breathed. Did you get this one right?
If you didn't, you might have to practice this a few times before you get it.
Next, the last sound is /d/ so the -ed ending is pronounced /Id/ - added, added.
Number five - the last sound is /s/ which is unvoiced or voiceless so kissed, kissed
Number six - the last sound is /n/ which is voiced, so listened, listened
Number seven - the last sound is /t/ so melted, melted
And number eight - the last sound is /ch/ which is voiceless, so launched, launched
Number nine - the last sound is /l/ which is voiced, so traveled, traveled
In number 10, the last sound is /b/. Remember /b/ is voiced, so grabbed, grabbed
Alright, how many of those did you get right?
Let me know how many you got correct in the comments section
I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in another lesson soon.