手把手教你学口语25

pronunciation of the letter “t”.

Of course the letter “t” is usually pounced¹ “t”. But you may have noticed

that in fluent speech, native speakers sometimes pronounced the “t” as “d”. That

happens when the “t” comes between two voiced sounds.

Do you know what sounds in English are voiced? Well, there’re 15 voiced

consonant² sounds in English. b, d, g, m, n, ɡ, z,δ, l, r, dз,з,j,w. Also, all

vowel³ and diphthong sounds in English are voiced. So let’s look at some examples

of words in which the “t” may be pronounced “d”.

No.1 “matter”. “matter” is often pronounced “mader” as in “What’s the matter?”

No.2 “atom”. “atom” is often pronounced “adom” as in “The first atom bomb was

dropped on Hiroshima.”

No.3 “twenty”. “twenty” is often pronounced “twendi” as in “That will be twenty

dollars, please.”

No.4 “little”. “little” is often pronounced “liddle” as in “He got a little

angry.”

No.5 “city”. “city” is often pronounced “cidi” as in “Did you grow up in the

city or the country?”

No.6 “butter”. “butter” is often pronounced “buder” as in “Pass the butter,

please.”

When people speak slowly or emphatically, however, they usually pronounce

the “t” like “t”, not like “d”. Also, a “t” does not sound like “d” when it

comes before a stressed vowel as in “return”.

This has been today’s daily tip on learning English. Tune in tomorrow for

another tip

1 pounced   

v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击）

参考例句：

• As soon as I opened my mouth, the teacher pounced on me. 我一张嘴就被老师抓住呵斥了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The police pounced upon the thief. 警察向小偷扑了过去。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 consonant   

n.辅音；adj.[音]符合的

参考例句：

• The quality of this suit isn't quite consonant with its price.这套衣服的质量和价钱不相称。
• These are common consonant clusters at the beginning of words.这些单词的开头有相同辅音组合。

3 vowel   

n.元音；元音字母

参考例句：

• A long vowel is a long sound as in the word"shoe ".长元音即如“shoe” 一词中的长音。
• The vowel in words like 'my' and 'thigh' is not very difficult.单词my和thigh中的元音并不难发。