Changed Sounds and How They Affect Listening
More trouble with t and d sounds
We’ve looked at dropped sounds and connected sounds and saw how those can affect your ability to decode what you’re actually hearing. Now it’s time to look at changed sounds.
It’s a bit hard to talk about all of the possible changed sounds you might hear because there are many that you’ll only hear in certain regional accents. There are even some that linguists are just starting to document now!
I’m going to focus on the common ones that I’ve seen many learners struggle with.
Flap t
In American English, when a t is between two vowel sounds in an unstressed syllable, it sounds like a d. Many people have heard this discussed in the pronunciation of the word water.
But, this occurs in many other words, such as little, city, data, and butter.
Listen for the flap t in this tongue twister:
You’ll also hear the flap t when the t is at the end of a word and the next one starts with an unstressed syllable. Listen for it in these sentences:
What a surprise! (whadda)
Well, I sort of agree with him. (sorda)
Notice that in these sentences we’re seeing the consonant - vowel connection + the flap t changed sound. If you’re not expecting it, no wonder it’s difficult to hear.
tr = chr/dr = jr
The American r can have a strong effect on the letters around it.
This is true (what did you hear there?) when we look at tr at the beginning of a word:
trick —> chrick
try —> chry
train —> chrain
You hear this most commonly with words that start with tr, but it can also show up in the middle of words, where:
metro —> mechro
retro —> rechro
I learned about this one the hard way, as I had a lot of difficulty making myself understood when I told people that I lived in Trujillo.
Similarly, we have the r changing the pronunciation in dr clusters. Thus,
drive —> jrive
draw —> jraw
dream —> jream
This doesn’t show up often in the middle of words, but when it does, we have:
cadre —> cajre
hydro —> hyjro
Even though these don’t cross the word boundaries, these changes can cause problems when you’re listening.
D + Yu = J
This combination shows up commonly in words with a du spelling, like procedure, individual, scheduled, and graduate, although there are other spellings, such as in soldier.
The bigger problem is when this happens between words, such as in questions. Have you heard:
Did you —> dija
Would you —> wuja
Could you —> cuja
Because these are function (grammar) words, they’re not pronounced clearly. Then, they’re connected, and the sounds are changed into something else entirely. Luckily, you can hear the question intonation in these questions or else we might miss the fact that someone was even asking a question!
T + Yu = CH
Just like with the last group, we see this in individual words, such as picture and nature.
But it also occurs across words, like in negative questions:
Don’t you —> don chu
Didn’t you —> din chu
Can’t you —> can chu
It even shows up in common sentences:
Nice to meet you —> Nice ta meecha
You are what you eat —> You are whachu eat
Never going to let you down —> Never gonna lechu down
As always, I like to end with a song that clearly demonstrates the feature of connected speech we’re discussing, so listen for the changed sounds in this song:
Dropped, connected, and changed sounds can all affect our ability to understand what we’re hearing, but once you start to recognize them, you’ll be on your way to listening better in English.