Here’s everything you need for a PERFECT “Stop T”
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I’m excited for you because in this video you’re going to perfect one of the main consonant sounds in the American English accent, and it’s a sound you might not even know about. I’m talking about the stop T. The trick is, it’s actually not a sound. There’s no sound. The air stops, and that’s why it’s called a stop T. But it’s different from leaving the T out. And it’s easy to hear when we slow it down.
Listen to this. The word is ‘outdoors’, and it’s in slow motion. You’ll hear two separate, distinct parts.
Outdoors
Let’s look at the volume of that word.
Outdoors.
Do you see this blank spot? No sound. That’s the stop of air, the stop T.
Outdoors.
So if the Stop T is no sound, isn’t that just the same thing as no T? And if that’s true, what’s the difference between ‘fly’, which has no T, and ‘flight’, that ends in a Stop T but has all the same sounds? By the way, this is the symbol for the stop T in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Fly
Flight
They don’t sound the same, do they? But we’re not hearing a T, tt, sound. We’re not hearing that release, flight.
Flight.
There’s no T. but it sounds different from ‘fly’ which has the same sounds but no T. Let’s compare them again.
Fly
Flight
Fly
Flight
So the difference is in how the sound before the t sounds. In fly,
Fly
Fly, the pitch goes up, and then it comes back down, fly. It sorts of tapers off. But in the word ‘flight’, the sound has an abrupt stop. It doesn’t have that falling or tapering off. Flight. Fly. That abrupt stop is the Stop T. Let’s listen to a couple more pairs.
Sue
Suit
Day
Date
How do we make this stop of air? And why not make a full tt, T sound? The thing about American English is we love smoothness. Everything links together in a flow of continuous sound. That’s one of the characteristics of American English. But tt isn’t very smooth, it’s a stop of air, tt, and a release of air with some energy. So the Stop T came about, where we skip the ttt release part, to make our speech more smooth. We Stop the air, but then we just go in to the next sound without tt, the release. Take, for example, the word ‘fitness’.
Fitness
Fitttttt-ness. F consonant, IH vowel, a stop: fit. Then the N sound. Fit-ness. Fitness. To stop the air, I cut it off in my throat at the vocal cords. The tongue c an be in position for the T, but it doesn’t have to be. Fit— the air is stopped there, fit, fit-ness.
Fitness
Here are a couple more words with a stop t in the middle, hear the stop, then the next sound.
Outlast
Partner
Shutdown
When do you make a stop T? Most Americans turn a T into a Stop T in two cases: when the next sound is a consonant, like in ‘shutdown’ or ‘fitness’. Also, at the end of a thought group or sentence. For example, “He’s late!” Late, not lay. He late!
We also make a T a stop T at the end of the word when the next word begins with a consonant like in the phrase ‘not now’, not now’. That abrupt stop, that’s the Stop T at the end of a sentence. With the stop T, you don’t hear tt that crisp True T that you hear in, for example, ‘attain’
Attain
A True T has its place, but not in the words we’ll study here.
Now you’ll hear and see a whole bunch of words up close and in slow motion with a Stop T in the middle. Then there’s a section where we’re comparing a Stop T with a word that is the same but with no T sound, like ‘fly’ ‘flight’. This is going to help you really understand this sound, but nothing is as helpful as repeating out loud, so I really encourage you to do that with both the slow motion and regular-paced words.
Apartment
Artful
Assortment
Atlas
Basketball
Bat boy
Batman
Bluntly
Butler
Catfish
Catnap
Chutney
Compartment
Countdown
Cutback
Dartboard
Department
Dirtbag
Doubtful
Fitness
Flatness
Football
Footbridge
Fretfully
Fruitful
Hotbed
Hotdog
Itself
Letdown
Lightweight
Meatball
Nutmeg
Outlast
Outbid
Outbreak
Outburst
Outdated
Outdone
Outdoors
Outfit
Outfox
Outgrow
Outhouse
Outlier
Partly
Partner
Pitfall
Fly
Flight
Fly
Flight
My
Might
My
Might
Fall
Fault
Fall
Fault
Lie
Light
Lie
Light
Gay
Gate
Gay
Gate
Sue
Suit
Sue
Suit
Away
Await
Away
Await
Tray
Trait
Tray
Trait
Bay
Bait
Bay
Bait
Day
Date
Day
Date
Lay
Late
Lay
Late
Stay
State
Stay
State
Ray
Rate
Ray
Rate
Play
Plate
Play
Plate
Slay
Slate
Slay
Slate
Buy
Bite
Buy
Bite
Sigh
Site
Sigh
Site
Cue
Cute
Cue
Cute
May
Mate
May
Mate
Know
Note
Know
Note
Toe
Tote
Toe
Tote
Flew
Flute
Flew
Flute
Spy
Spite
Spy
Spite
Row
Wrote
Row
Wrote
Rye
Right
Rye
Right
Be
Beat
Be
Beat
Fee
Feet
Fee
Feet
Mow
Moat
Mow
Moat
Bow
Boat
Bow
Boat
He
Heat
He
Heat
Go
Goat
Go
Goat
Sea
Seat
Sea
Seat
Spa
Spot
Spa
Spot
Blow
Bloat
Blow
Bloat
Plea
Pleat
Plea
Pleat
We
Wheat
We
Wheat
Knee
Neat
Knee
Neat
Rue
Root
Rue
Root
All my YouTube channel members get an extra video here. It’s training stop T at the end of a word like date and fit. So, if you’re a channel member, thank you. That video has already dropped for you. If you’re not a member and you want to see that video and support this channel, please click the join button.
Using the stop T in your spoken English is going to help you sound more natural when speaking American English. Listening and repeating out loud, repetition, is going to be the key to making the habit and speaking English with ease. If you want to train all the sounds, and other characteristics like smoothness and linking, stress and contrast, check out my online school, Rachel’s English Academy, where thousands of students are going through the training and creating the habits to speak American English with clarity, ease, and confidence, all with the help of our fantastic teachers. Join today and try it out.
Thanks for watching. Keep your learning going now with this video, and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on. I absolutely love being your English teacher. That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.
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