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Speaker 1: I know that you often listen to this podcast. Maybe

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it's because you like to hear authentic American English and

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you find that this helps you speak English a little better. Well,

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today it's all about dropping the tea. Let's dive in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from

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New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.

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Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael

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here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.

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And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode eight twenty six.

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Please drop the tea. Hello and welcome. Thanks for joining

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me for another episode of the Happy English Podcast. I'm

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your English teacher, Michael, and I'm so glad you could

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join me here. Today we're diving into one of those

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little pronunciation secrets that can really help you sound more

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natural when you speak English. You might have noticed that

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in a lot of words, the T sound just disappears,

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or sometimes it sounds more like a D. What's going

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on there, our native speakers being lazy? Not exactly, There

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are some actually interesting reasons behind this. Before we practice

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this kind of pronunciation, let's talk about why English speakers

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often change or drop the T sound. There are a

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few reasons and the most basic is that, well, it's

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easier to say. When we speak quickly, we naturally look

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for shortcuts. The tea sound can be a little sharp

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and choppy, so our mouths try to smooth things out,

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especially in casual, everyday speech, and English has a rhythm.

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It's a stress timed language, which means we stress certain

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syllables and weaken others. So in words like butter or little,

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we stress the first syllable and the second part kind

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of fades out that tea in the middle it softens

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or disappears. And lastly, it kind of depends on where

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you are. In some places in the States, in American English,

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it's super common to hear what we call a flap tea.

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That's when the tea sounds like a soft d, especially

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in words like water, better and city. And in some

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parts of the US people drop the tea completely in

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words like twenty or authentic. All right, so let's break

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this down. Here are the four main cases where English

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speakers tend to drop the T sound. I'll give you

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some examples too. First of all, we have words ending

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in ten like t, e, n, st, n ftn and

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so on. Words with these endings often lose the T

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sound completely like eatin sounds like eating, Listen, hmm sounds

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like listen, often sounds like often soften sounds like soften.

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Frighten sounds like frighten. Listen to those words again, eaten, listen, often, soften, frighten.

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And now listen to this, I've already eaten lunch. I've

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already eaten lunch. You'll probably hear yourself skip that tea

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in eating. Next up, we have words ending in T

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T A N, T t E N or t T

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O en. This one's a big group, and it includes

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a lot of everyday words like bitten sounds like bitten,

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button sounds like button, cotton sounds like cotton, kitten sounds

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like kitten, and written sounds like written. Right, listen to

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those words again, bitten, button, cotton, kitten. And so instead

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of I bought a cotton shirt, you might hear I

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bought a cotton shirt. The third group is words ending

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in stl E. In these words, the T is always silent,

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so we say castle and not castle, hustle and not hustle,

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whistle and not whistle, wrestle and not wrestle, So it's castle, hustle,

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whistle and wrestle. And now listen to this sentence the

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kids were playing near the old castle. No tea sound

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there at all. Next, and this one's a bit more regional.

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But in some areas of the US, when a word

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is spelled with NT, the T sound is usually dropped

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like authentic is pronounced like authentic, Gigantic is pronounced like gigantic,

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twenty is pronounced like twenty. Listen to those words again, authentic, gigantic, twenty.

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And so, for example, there were twenty people there becomes

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there were twenty people there, twenty. I'm sure you've heard

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that a lot before, right, And one more thing. Sometimes

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the T sound turns into a soft D. This is

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called the flap tea, and it happens in the middle

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of a word when the first syllable is stressed like

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butter is pronounced like butter, little is pronounced like little,

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better is pronounced like better, and bottle is pronounced like bottle.

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Listen to those words again, butter, little, better, bottle. I

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need a bottle of water, I need a bottle of water.

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I need a bottle of water, but it's usually pronounced

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as I need a bottle of water and here's a tip.

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When the stress is on the second syllable, the tea

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usually keeps its normal sound. This happens in words like attend, attempt, attorney,

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and attract. As you can hear there, the tea is

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clear and not dropped. So if you've ever wondered why

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English sometimes feels different when you hear it compared to

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how it's spelled, this is one big reason. The t

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sound is flexible and native speakers often change it without thinking. Now,

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I'm not saying you have to speak this way. I'm

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not saying you have to drop the tea sound, but

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if you want to sound more natural, especially in casual conversation,

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it's good to notice when it happens and try it

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out for yourself. That's it for today's pronunciation tip. I

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hope this helps you understand native English a little better

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and sound a little more native too. Do you want

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to speak English better? You can get more practice using

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your English when you join my podcast Learner's Study Group.

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There you can make new friends, join us live group

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lessons every week where we practice these podcasts lessons together.

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Plus you get access to the pdf transcript and audio

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download for every Happy English podcast in the past and

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in the future. And on top of that, each episode

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has exercises where you can practice this English point with

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speaking and writing checked by me. To learn more, just

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visit Myhappy English dot com and choose podcast lesson eight

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twenty six. Remember, learning another language is not easy, but

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it's not impossible, and I'm here to help you on

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your journey.

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Speaker 2: This podcast is brought to you by Happy English. Please

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