The /t/ Sound | How To Pronounce The Letter T | Australian Accent Tips

- tea or not city that is the question of the day hello everyone I'm Kandace mol and I'm here to bring you some Australian accent tips some ideas to help you make your Australian dialect sound more authentic so a question that I've been asked quite a lot often in the comments on these videos too is how do Australians pronounce the letter T there are four main ways that I can think of that an Australian person might pronounce the letter T so I'm gonna take you through those and then also mention a couple of exceptions to the rule in the hope that it will help you rather than confuse you so the first way to pronounce the letter T is of course the hard T which is the T that everyone can hear tip usually comes at the beginning of a word - today tomorrow if you can hear that T it's a hard team I want to touch on the placement of the hard team specifically for people who have English as their second language often what will happen in different languages is that the placement touches the back of the teeth in Australian English we don't want to do that so if you feel the back of your teeth with the tip of your tongue slide it back a little bit and you can feel that Ridge there that's behind your teeth the tip of your tongue wants to be at the very tip of that Ridge it's right here so my tongue isn't touching the back of my teeth it's just a little further back on the top of that that little Ridge there okay so that will help you to get a really clean sound rather than having a heavier tip tip when it's touching the back of your teeth alright so a heart T will be used like I said at the beginning of a word it will also be used in more of a cultivated dialect and that is what pronouncing every T will create that cultivated sound the next way to pronounce the letter T is the silent T now this generally will come at the end of a word for example the word what rather than saying what which will be more of a cultivated sound which is also Australian and still correct if you want more of a general sound then we would make that a silent T to create that silent T sound don't stop the sound in your throat you want to place your tongue on that Ridge right here and close off the sound with a placement so instead of saying what I would say what what I mentioned in an earlier video that if you stop the sound in your throat it does create more of a British sound so make sure you're placing your tongue right there okay though some examples would be what right ah that's a really hard word for me to say no one understands me if I pronounce it the way that I want to pronounce it which is just up it sounds like I'm just making a noise art another example of that is hot but there you have it the silent T so the next way to pronounce the letter T which is the soft D sound now this generally will come if the T is in the middle of a word for example water and the way to create this sound it's more like if you imagine in other languages maybe like Spanish there's a lot of rolled as a ruler right so think of the name a little heavier hmm so name I saw on TV and I liked it better no Helia that our sound is basically what your tongue is doing when you create an Australian soft D sound so an exaggerated way to it would be like water water but instead of allowing that are to be long you just want your tongue to roll over once water water water so it's so soft that it's almost like a rolled up but just that one rotation okay water other words might be butter or bitter if anything where there's a tea in the middle of the word we'll probably have that soft D sound and again if someone says water or butter then that's still correct often people will use both so they might say water one minute and then say water the next I often noticed like with these videos I might use more hard T sounds in these videos that I would in my day-to-day life just because I'm teaching so I try to speak more clearly and then I watch it back and because we're talking about the letter T I'm thinking about it as I'm speaking it's interesting I just I'm trying to be more clear so I'm using more T's than I might otherwise he so there's the soft D sound now the other time that a soft D will come into play is if you have a word that has a silent T at the end but you're using it in a sentence so for example the word heart but if I put the word heart in a run-on sentence then I would say my heart is beating my heart is and this really is the same role as the connecting our remember in an earlier video we spoke about that our that comes between two vowel sounds this is a very similar thing my heart is beating okay so that silent T becomes a soft D sound in that instance and it's really just about making the flow of the speed smooth it's all about being lazy really just be more lazy and you'll sound really Australian hmm the last main way to pronounce a letter T is what I like to call it chewy T now I'm pretty sure this is not a technical term there's a good chance I made it up there's also a chance that I heard it somewhere and just started using it I don't actually know where I got it from but I like to call these a chewy T and the reason is because these T's make a chip sound like in chewy so this generally is if a T is followed by an R for example the word truck chuck truck it's like you're making that sound sure sure and you're pulling it pulling your tongue back into that sound truck truck so my tongue starts on that Ridge behind my teeth tip but it's like I'm pulling it back into that are so quickly that it just makes it chip truck okay another example is the word tree and even the word Tuesday Chef Tuesday that's a real chewy T there's no are there it's just a straight sure Tuesday okay now the other time that a chewy T will come into play is if you have a T in the middle of a word that is followed by an e for example the word literally now you read it and you want to say literally literally which is how the Americans would say it literally it's a very popular word at the moment literally often used completely incorrectly but bets for another day so the word literally what we're doing is we're taking that ter in the middle and just drop they eat all together so it becomes a litora literally okay the same rule applies for interesting it's not interesting it's interesting so you just drop that vowel in between the T and the are another one is all battery instead of saying battery which I've been known to do from time to time because I live in the United States and I pick up habits my dad picked me up on that one he's like I think you mean battery and I'm like all right it's not a battery it's a battery good call dad thank you very much for keeping my Australian dialect authentic subbu they are the main ways that I can think of that an Australian might pronounce the letter T now I want to touch on a couple of exceptions to the rules because there's always exceptions to the rule isn't there just to make life interesting so so one of the exceptions that I want to talk about is looking at the silent team I said they usually come at the end of a word that's true however the letter T will often be affected by one of the letters are surrounding it so if you look at words where the T has either an s an X or an F that comes before it then generally you're gonna pronounce that hard T at the end of the word for example the word test so because the t has an s before it then you're gonna say the hard t at the end test and now the word is next it's got that X in there and craft just pronounce that hard T if it follows an S and X or an if there's probably other ones as well but that's what I could think of okay just to make it confusing for you and the other exception that I wanted to talk about was if a middle tea is followed by an e in this role of dropping a vowel also applies here the same way it does in literally where you drop the e between the T and R if you look at the word kitten we're dropping that e between the T and the N at the end of the word kitten the way to pronounce this is to use a silent T in the middle so key use that placement the same way that you would the silent T kit and then just make an end noise without moving your mouth it comes through your nose really mmm it's bit like a Japanese kid saying yes mmm they're very cute kitten kitten again really lazy kitten you place your tongue use it as a silent T and just make a sound same with baton or cotton so anything that ends in a ten a ton a ten the general rule is that you drop that vowel sound and just use the in a really tricky one is the word important important now import mmm makes sense based on what I've just said but that T at the end it can be silent but generally there's the smallest sound there it's like you place your tongue for the T important and just release it place the tongue and release and it makes that little popping sound important okay important so that sometimes can happen if a word ends in in T okay just to give you something to practice because we all need those so there is your letter T I hope I've helped you keep on practicing and I'll see you next time bye [Music]

Channel: Candice Moll

Views: 28,984

Keywords: The /t/ Sound | How To Pronounce The Letter T | Australian Accent Tips, aussie t, australian t, australian t sound, consonant, consonant sound flap 't' / t̬ / as in, consonant sounds, flap t, how to pronounce australian consonants, how to pronounce the consonant t, how to pronounce the letter t, how to say, the /t/ sound, the letter t, glottal t, how to pronounce, how to pronounce tap t, regular t, speak like a native Australian, stop consonants, stop sounds, tap t, true t

Id: mHF3D0Shao0

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 28 2019