Hi everyone. In this video, you'll learn about the different pronunciations of the T sound.
You may be thinking, "The T sound? That one's easy!" But hear me out! There are three ways
that Americans pronounce this sound. It may take you a while to perfect all three pronunciations
of the T sound and that's okay - the goal is to increase your awareness of the sounds so that
you can begin to hear them when you talk to native speakers. Once the awareness is there,
you'll be able to use them. The first way to make a T is called the true T or the released T,
and it's probably the way that you learned how to pronounce it. Your tongue tip comes up to the
roof of your mouth behind your front teeth. You build up some air behind your tongue, and then you
quickly drop the tongue down to release the sound. You use a true T at the beginning of a word like
in time and take. You also use it at the beginning of a stressed syllable like in Italian and attach.
The true T is represented by this symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The second way
to make a T sound is called the flap, where the tip of your tongue flaps up to the roof of your
mouth to make contact, and it sounds like a light D sound. This is similar to the R sound in other
languages. The flap T is quick - your tongue just comes up to the roof of the mouth to quickly make
contact and then comes right back down. If the tongue makes too much contact with the roof of
the mouth, it will sound like a D sound. Here is the IPA symbol for the flap. You use a flap
when T occurs between vowels in unstressed syllables like in the words butter, Italy,
and water. This is also a pronunciation that makes Americans sound different from English
speakers in the UK. Americans use a flap in the word water, but British people use a true T. The
third way to pronounce a T is called a glottal stop or a glottal T. The glottal stop is made
with the vocal cords when they come together quickly to close off the airflow. Say the words
uh-oh. You should feel your vocal cords come together quickly to make those sounds. Uh-oh,
uh-oh. Uh-oh. That's the glottal stop. We use a glottal stop for the T when the letter T comes
in the middle of the word and is before a final syllable ending with N, like in cotton, satin,
and forgotten. We may also use a glottal stop in place of a T when T comes at the end of a
word like in the word cat. However, it's up to the speaker if they want to use a glottal stop
here or the true T like in cat. Here are some practice words and sentences for each of the T
pronunciations. True T or released T: Time, to, take, trash. It's time to take out the trash.
Flap T: Betty, butter. Betty bought a lot of butter. Glottal T: KitKat, rotten. The KitKat
is rotten. Thanks for watching and let me know if you would like some help with T pronunciations.