This is the "Sounds American" channel.

In this video, we're going to review the stop consonant sounds.

Before we start, let's talk about what the consonant sounds are.

Here's a definition from Sounds American:

A consonant sound is a speech sound

in which the air stream is at least partially blocked

when leaving your mouth.

For example, look at how the air is blocked by the tip of your tongue

and flows around it when you make the /l/ sound,

as in the word "let."

Now, onto the stops sounds.

This is the second largest group of consonant sounds in American English.

Why are they called the stop sounds?

Because when you pronounce them,

the air stream is first stopped - or blocked - in your mouth

and then released with a puff.

For example, the /p/ sound as in the word "pie" is a stop consonant.

Types of Stop Sounds

In this introduction to the stop consonants we'll cover the basics.

In our future videos,

we'll talk about each stop sound in detail

and provide practice exercises.

There are six distinct stop sounds in American English.

They differ by how and where you stop the air in your mouth.

You can stop the air with your lips

and make the /p/ or /b/ sounds,

like in the words "pie" and "buy."

You can also stop the air with the tip of your tongue at the alveolar ridge.

If you do so, you'll make the /t/ or /d/ sounds,

like in the words "ten" and "den."

And finally,

you can stop the air with the back of your tongue in your throat

and make the /k/ or /g/ sounds,

like in the words "kite" and "guy."

As you may have noticed, we like charts.

Here's one for the stops sounds.

See how all the stops are grouped in pairs?

Once again,

Once again, they are grouped by how and where you stop the air in your mouth.

Voicing

The sounds in the right-hand column are pronounced with your voice.

These are the voiced stop sounds.

Listen:

/b/

/d/

/g/

The sounds in the left-hand column are pronounced without adding your voice.

They are called the voiceless stop sounds.

Listen:

/p/

/t/

/k/

Don't confuse the voiced and voiceless sounds,

as voicing may change the meaning of words.

Compare:

You may also have noticed that the voiceless stop sounds are pronounced with a stronger puff of air.

And that leads us to our next topic:

Aspiration or Making a Puff of Air

Stop sounds exist in every language in the world.

What makes American pronunciation of these sounds so special?

It's ASPIRATION.

Aspiration is actually a big deal in American English.

Depending on the position of a stop sound in a word,

you either make a puff of air or you don't.

Don't worry,

there's a rule which is easy to remember.

Here it goes:

If a stop sound starts a word or a stressed syllable

it's pronounced with a puff of air.

For example,

At the end of most words (and syllables)

stop sounds are pronounced without a puff of air.

For example,

This is called the "Final Stop" rule.

The final stop rule's most often used in conversational speech.

Please, note, that if you make a puff of air, you’ll be understood,

but you won't be speaking with an American accent.

Compare:

Many non-native English speakers believe that Americans drop

or swallow the stop sounds at the end of words.

That's not quite right.

The final stops are always pronounced,

just without a puff of air.

By the way,

if you're keen on the terminology,

stop sounds pronounced with the puff of air are called "aspirated stops."

Stops pronounced without the puff,

are called "unaspirated stops."

These are essentially positional variants of the same sounds.

Vowel Length Rule

Ok,

in conversation,

the final stops consonants are typically unaspirated.

But how can you tell a difference between words ending with voiced

or voiceless stops if they're not made with a puff of air?

Here are a few pairs of words that differ by their final stop sounds only:

Can you hear the difference?

Correct,

all the final stops are not aspirated

and thus they sound very similar, if not the same.

But still,

you can, probably, tell they're different.

How?

Note that the vowel sounds are the same in each pair.

However,

the vowels in the words on the left are shorter than their counterparts on the right.

Check them out again.

This is called the "Vowel Length" rule.

Useful, isn't it?

Positional Variations

As you can see,

there are many ways to pronounce the stop sounds.

This is especially true for the /t/ sound.

Did know there are two other ways to pronounce the American English /t/,

which differs from British pronunciation?

Let's start with the flap 'T' sound,

which is found in the word "water."

When the /t/ occurs between voiced sounds,

it sounds more like a quick /d/:

This positional variation is called a "flap 'T'."

Why does this happen?

Because it's easier to continue voicing

and turn your voiceless /t/

into a fast voiced /d/ sound.

Listen to some examples:

Here's another positional variation of the /t/ sound.

Listen:

When the /t/ is used before an unstressed syllable with the /n/ sound,

it's pronounced without a puff of air,

and with a quick stop made in your throat.

This positional variation is called a "glottal 'T'."

For example:

Still with us?

Remember, there's a pause button if you need it!

There's just one more item left in this topic.

Now listen attentively to these words:

Did you hear the /t/ or /d/ sounds pronounced?

You're right, they were dropped.

When the /t/ or /d/ sounds follow the nasal consonant /n/,

they may be dropped.

You don't necessarily need to follow this rule,

this is a conversational way of speaking that will come to you naturally with practice.

Now, let's recap what you've learned in this video:

There are six stop sounds in American English.

Half of them are voiced and the other half are voiceless.

It's important that you make a puff of air when pronouncing the stop sounds.

Unless you want to sound like an American.

In that case, you should make the final stops without a puff of air.

If you do that,

your final voiceless and voiced stops will sound almost the same.

So you'll need to make the vowels longer before the voiced stops and shorter before the voiceless stops.

Add some voice to your voiceless /t/

when it's between voiced sounds.

It's called a "flap 'T'."

Pronounce the /t/ in your throat if it's before a weak syllable with the /n/ sound.

It's called a "glottal 'T'."

And occasionally drop the /t/ after the /n/.

You may also drop the /d/ after the /n/ for that matter.

Some of these topics are about pronunciation in conversational speech.

They are not critical if all you want is to speak some English.

They are, however, very important if you want to speak English like an American.

At this point, we usually provide words for practice.

And we'll definitely do that in our next videos

when we talk about each stop consonant in detail.

But before you go,

let's complete a quick quiz over what we've learned.

Look at these words.

Can you recall the rules that apply to the sounds represented by the highlighted letters?

Now you're done!

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