T Pronunciations: a TED Talk

This video covers everything you need to refine your ‘T’ pronunciation, the most challenging sound in English.

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This letter is one of the most tricky, most vexing letters in American English. It looks rather innocent, doesn’t it? Seems so straightforward. Ask anyone and they know that’s the letter T and it’s pronounced T. The thing is, when you actually study spoken English you’ll find that T is the pronunciation of maybe about one third of the time.  

To know the symbols of the sounds we will talk about today and all the sounds of American English, click here or in the video description to get a free cheat sheet, the sounds of American English. It’s a great reference tool and even I use it quite a bit.  

I thought it would be fun today to look at Ted Talk and to see all the ways the T sound changes. If you’re a student studying English as a second language, you’ll want to start to get a feel for the different pronunciations of T because it will help your speech sound more natural and less effortful. Let’s just dive right in and as we find out different pronunciations, we’ll stop and talk about them.  

So what do you think of when you think of the ocean?  

We had our first example there of a stop T. What do you? tt. That’s not what we heard. There was no tt but tt is the sound of a T so what gives? When the sound after t is a consonant, we usually skip the tt, part of the T. You see, the T sound has 2 parts. A stop with a little bit of air and tt, a release. This is different from say M, which has no stop and you can hold out forever, mmmmmm. You can’t do that with a T. tt, tt, tt, tt, tt. Stop, release, over and over. For a stop T, we do stop the air. What? And sometimes we might move the tongue into position for  the T at the top of the mouth here but we skip the tt part, the release. So ‘what do’ becomes what do, what do, a stop. Sometimes it’s very clear and a longer break. What do you think you’re doing? And sometimes, it’s much more subtle. What do you think? We’re going to label our stop Ts this color and remember the general rule that this is the pronunciation when the next sound is a consonant. Let’s keep going.  

So what do you think of when you think of the ocean?  

Maybe you think of a visit to the beach.  

Visit to. Now, it’s common in American English to link words. When one word ends in a sound and the next word begins with that sound, they will link with a single sound.  

Mom makes the best cookies. Mommakes, mommakes. That happens here. One stop, one release, one true T. Visit to, visit to, ttttt. Do you hear that crisp release? Tt. That’s the true T, the real T, the full T. We’ll mark those with this color.  

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Maybe you think of a visit to the beach, or whales or sharks or coral reefs?  

I think of this. This is San Juan Islands in Washington state. They just out of an expanse.  

Ah, okay. We got our first flap T. If you look up jut in the dictionary, you’ll see this symbol. This is the symbol of a true T but here it’s a flap. The general rule for a flap T is that the T is between two vowel or diphthong sounds as it is here or after an r before a vowel or diphthong like in the word party. Then it’s a flap T. There’s no tt in party is [flap] a single, quick flap of the tongue. No stop of air here in the flap T. It sounds like the American D between vowels but it might sound sort of an R to you depending on your native language. Jut out, jut out, jut out of. Jut out of [flap]. Two flap Ts there.  

And we’re about the get another one in ‘water’.  

They jut out of an expanse of deep dark water, and they’re filled with life and mystery and opportunity.  

The word opportunity gives us an opportunity to look at these rules a little bit deeper. The first T there comes after an R before a vowel. We learned earlier that is a flap T. In opportunity, it’s ttttt, a true T. Why? There is a rule that overwrites the flap T rule. If that T sound begins a stressed syllable, it’s a true T. Here, it begins the third syllable which is stressed, so it’s a true T. Opportun, ttttt. But the last T doesn’t start a stressed syllable does come between two vowels or diphthong sounds is a flap T, [flap]. Opportunity, opportunity. Flap Ts will be marked with this color. Let’s keep going.  

They jut out of an expanse of deep dark water, and they’re filled with life and mystery and opportunity. 

But whatever you think of, the ocean is much more. It is a complex physical, chemical and biological system.  

Okay now, that was strange. System. I definitely don’t hear tt, that T really sounded more like a d, sort of like a flap T. System. But it doesn’t come between two vowel or diphthong sounds. Yeah, the rules aren’t perfect, They don’t capture everything. This T is officially a true T in the dictionary and a lot of native speakers would make it a true T. She’s not. There’s always going to be some variation. Let’s keep going.  

It is a complex physical, chemical and biological system that takes up seventy percent of our planet.  

You’ve heard true Ts, stop Ts, Flap Ts. There’s a fourth pronunciation, ‘percent of’ becomes percent of. Not stop T, not a true T, not a flap T but no T at all. Dropped. Percent of. Twenty. Internet.  

This is common when T comes after an N before a vowel or diphthong, and I have a video with a bunch of examples with that. But also, between two other consonants like just thought, ‘justought’. Or first class, ‘firstclass’. When the T’s dropped, we’ll put an X over it like this.  

Hold on! In that phrase, we had another word, seventy, nt vowel or diphthong but it wasn’t dropped. Exception: Seventy is pronounced with a flap T even though it doesn’t follow the rules for flap T. Seventy.  

Now, this is a Ted Talk. It’s a speech. So it’s not quite conversational English. Things tend to be a little more clearly pronounced, there are more pauses in giving a speech than in conversation. So she’ll do some stop Ts where native speakers in conversation might do a flap T because it comes between two vowels. Still, it’s shocking how tt, is likely not the sound you’ll hear for this letter even in a speech. Now, keep in mind the letter T sometimes makes a sound other that T as it’s official sound like in the word ‘the’. It goes with the h to make the th sound. Or in the word ‘motion’. It’s part of the tion ending to make tion or tion. So there’s no T sound there at all. Those will all be ignored, no special color in our transcript. Let’s keep going.  

It is a complex physical, chemical and biological system that takes up seventy percent of our planet. And yet we’re still really just beginning to understand it.  

 So we’ve heard about thirty seconds of a speech. There were 27 Ts that are supposed to make the T sound but only ten of them did. We had six stop Ts, ten true Ts, 9 flap Ts and two dropped Ts. So if you’re studying English and you’re trying to tt, tt, tt, tt, pronounce all those as true Ts not only is that a lot of effort but it’s not going to sound all that natural. Now let’s go with the rest of the Ted Talk. Each T pronunciation will be marked with the appropriate color. If it’s a T that isn’t a T sound like in the sound temperature, that second T, remember, that’s officially a ch, we’re not going to color those Ts. We’ll still find another way that tt, is pronounced and I’ll stop when we get there so we can explore it.  

What we do know is that the ocean is a vital part of our life support system on the planet. It produces at least fifty percent of the oxygen that we breathe. So, more than one in every two breaths. It also regulates temperature for the planet. So without the ocean, the poles would be unbearable cold and the equator would be unbearably hot, and it would be a lot harder to live here. Now we think about saving the ocean from plastic or from oil and oil spills or from overfishing. But really, we should be thinking about how the ocean is saving us. And what is it saving us from? It’s saving us from the climate change that we are creating. Essentially, ourselves.  

And so what does that mean? Basically, what we need to do is think about not how to save the ocean, but instead how the ocean can actually help us in this fight against climate change.  

Already, the ocean is absorbing 25 to 30 percent of the CO2 that we release into the atmosphere. It is the world’s largest carbon sink. The ocean has also absorbed 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gasses.  

Now, we just heard another kind of T. So far, we’ve studied stop T, true T, flap T, dropped T and now we’re hearing T as CH. This happens in two different cases. First, in the tr cluster. It’s more common for native speakers to pronounce that as chr like ‘train’ and we just heard a tr cluster in the word ‘trapped’. The T sounds like a CH. Trapped, trapped. The ed ending of the word ‘trapped’ is also a T sound, a true T. We’re not even going to get into ed endings in this video but I do have an amazing series on the ED ending that you’ll want to be sure to check out because we have three pronunciations of that ending. I’ll link to that playlist in the video description.  

So this was an example of a T becoming a CH sound in the TR cluster like in the word ‘trapped’.  

Of the excess heat trapped.. 

When the T is pronounced as a CH, we’ll make it this color.  

I said that there are 2 situations that change a T to a CH. TR cluster and the second case is Y. When a word ends in T and the next word begins with a Y, most commonly you or your. For example the sentence, ‘I thought that you did that.’ That you, thachu. I thought that you did that. That you, ch sound. You won’t hear this all the time. I would estimate native speakers do it conversationally, maybe about half the time. T plus you, ch. Chu. Remember, T as CH will be this color. Let’s  keep going. I’m not going to stop and interrupt that talk again. You’ll see the color code for each T. But I do want to say that I sometimes had a hard time deciding what T pronunciation to assign. It wasn’t always super clear or straightforward. For example in the word ‘still’. I found it sometimes sounded like a true T, but sometimes it sounded more like a d or flap T. Still. A lot of times, I marked a true T because it was the best label but it was kind of weak or not very clear or crisp. Okay, here it is. The rest of the talk.  

The ocean has also absorbed 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gasses. So, it is basically helping to keep the planet habitable, at least for now. And yet, when we think about climate action and climate strategies and climate plans, we often overlook the ocean and leave it out, because somehow we think that saving the ocean is something else we have to do, not a core part of our climate strategy. And that’s what has to change because the ocean is a core part of our climate system, and so it has to be a core part of our climate solutions. So what does that actually mean? Well, for starters, we know that the ocean is already doing a lot for us. So the first thing we do need to do to save the ocean to save ourselves is to actually reduce emissions. I don’t think anyone here would disagree with that. But that still sounds like the ocean is a victim in the story, and really the ocean can and should be a hero in this story.  

The ocean can provide us with solutions to help us reduce those emissions, and it can also help us to adapt to this new climate reality that we’ve created. So how does that happen?  

We, essentially the first thing we need to do is to make sure that we keep all of these systems working and protect the systems that are protecting us. Because all of that CO2 and heat that the ocean is absorbing is actually coming at a cost. The ocean is warming and rising and acidifying, and we even have evidence now that we’re changing the basic circulation of the ocean, which changes the way it regulates temperature. So the first thing we need to do is really just protect those systems that are protecting us. But how do we more actively engage the ocean in our climate strategies? What can we do to really use the ocean to help us reduce emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change? What does that practically look like?  

Well, we know that coastal ocean ecosystems like mangroves or seagrasses or salt marshes are some of the most effective caron sinkns on the planet. Acre for acre, they can absorb ten times more carbon than a forest on land. And that carbon is very deep in the soils so that it can stay there for thousands of years if we leave it undisturbed. The problem is that we’re not leaving it undisturbed; we are destroying these places.  

We’ve lost 20 to 50 percent of them already, and we lose more every year. And all of that is creating emissions. But if we protect those places, then those emissions stop. Just like if you shut off a coal-fired power plant. And if we restore those places, then we can actually absorb even more carbon. But the power of the ocean isn’t limited just to reducing emissions. The ocean can also help us to adapt to the impacts of climate change we already feel and that we know will be here with us for decades.  

Those same mangroves can actually protect coastal communities by buffering them against more intense coastal storms and slowing wind and waves.  

Another example, oysters. In New York City, they’re using oysters to help reduce the risk of major floods and flood damage like they saw during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The idea is that these reefs form dense places that force water from nooks and crannies that slow it down. So by the time it hits the shore, it actually has less power and therefore can do less damage.  

And at the same time, they’re creating aquatic parks and places where people can gather and be with nature. Because the truth is that in this new climate reality that we’ve created, we will have to learn how to live with water and with the ocean in new ways. And so what better ways to do that than with the creatures that actually have evolved to live in these land and sea interfaces? And these are real solutions that are being implemented in real places based on what we know about the ocean now. And yet the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association of the United States estimates that 80 percent of the ocean is unmapped, unexplored and unobserved. So there is so much more out there that we could be doing and thinking about as climate solutions, and so much that we’re just still getting our imaginations around.  

For example, what if we could actually harness the power of the ocean’s wind and waves and tides to produce power?  

The International Energy Agency estimates that offshore wind alone could produce enough energy for the Earth and 17 other planets, carbon-free. And at the same time, we could actually be providing power to coastal communities and islands that don’t benefit from our current grids and systems.  

And if we’re really smart about it, we can plan and design these systems so that we’re creating artificial reefs that could support wildlife and aquaculture and help up grow food and sequester carbon and actually help the ocean instead of harm it.  

Or what if we could harness more of the ocean’s biological power to help us in this fight against climate change?  

For example, kelp. Kelp is one of the fastest-growing organisms on the planet. It can grow two feet per day. What if we could actually restore the world’s kelp forests and actually grow kelp at a scale that we could use all of that growing power to help us sequester carbon?  

Now, that’s likely to be a lot cheaper than trying to deploy human-made technologies out into the middle of the ocean to sequester carbon. And it’s likely to be a lot less risky than changing the ocean’s chemistry or engineering the ocean, because we’d actually be working with the natural systems instead of against them. And we’d probably have a lot of kelp left over that we could use to feed ourselves and feed animals and create plastic alternatives that would also help us to lower our footprint on the planet. And this is just a sampler of the types of solutions that the ocean has to offer for the climate crisis.  

The key is that we have to think about the ocean as a source of solutions that we can be using and enlist it in this fight. And these aren’t easy solutions. The time for that has passed. We don’t have any easy solutions left.  

And these aren’t excuses for not doing other things, these are not silver bullets. So we still have to do the hard work of reducing and getting rid of fossil fuels, and we still have to do the hard work of making sure that the most vulnerable among us will be able to adapt and thrive in the new climate reality.  

But the ocean is a powerful source of solutions that we’ve overlooked for far too long. And so we need to think about how we really integrate it into our strategies now. And that comes down to a fundamental change in mindset, which is instead of thinking about how we save the ocean, we should be thinking about how we can help the ocean save us. Thank you!  

So, you see the letter T, you look it up, you see the symbol for tt, the true T, but the sound is often not a true T.  

And yet the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association of the United States.  

She definitely said united. With a flap T even though the dictionary says united with a true T.  

I hope this video has shed sine light now how often that T sound is changed in natural spoken English.  

If you’re curious about American English pronunciation and want to learn more, check out this video next and be sure to subscribe to my channel on YouTube with notifications on so you never miss a lesson.

That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.   

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