Name: Say it correctly in English! -T, -S, -TS, -NT, -CE Pronunciation
Uploaded: 2025-07-17T09:34:40.000Z
Duration: 11 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In today's video, we're going to have a bit of a pronunciation lesson, and this was based on a request because many students have a problem with a particular ending type.

So, we're going to look at the words patient, patience, and patience.

Now, a lot of people have especially a tough time between the S sound and the TS sound, but we're going to look at all three and find out how you can practice placing your tongue and shaping your mouth properly to get the proper ending.

Both of these consonants are aspirated, meaning that there is an airflow involved in pronouncing them.

So, these are called unvoiced consonants, unvoiced sounds, because it's not from the vocal cords, it's just from air flowing through and making a sound as it comes out of your mouth.

Now, the reason I wrote the word pizza here, pizza, the double Z sound, is actually a TS sound, and I know that a lot of non-native English speakers have a really hard time with this word, but I'm going to show you that you really shouldn't because you do pronounce it properly in other situations.

You might just not really be aware of it.

So, let's start with the actual sounds, like where is your tongue, what is going on inside your mouth.

And, actually, before I get into that, keep in mind that everything I tell you here today, and I'm going to ask you to practice this and follow me and repeat, when you're out in the world and you're speaking English with whoever, don't worry about all this stuff.

If you need to explain yourself or repeat things, that's fine.

If you're going to think too much about your tongue and air and this and that, you're just going to get confused and stop speaking.

Learn the right way and practice it on your own, but then when you're actually out in the world speaking English, just be free.

Now, if you put your hand close to your mouth and do the T sound, t, t, you will feel a puff of air hitting your hand.

That's because you're releasing air in order to make this sound.

So, again, I apologize for the poor drawings, I'm not an artist.

I hope that you'll get the general idea, but I'll explain it as I go.

So, this is your mouth, and these are your teeth and your lips.

And the red part here, that is your tongue.

So, your tongue is behind your upper teeth, t, t, but it's also touching a little bit of the top and spread out, t.

So, it's touching the side teeth and t, t, and a little bit the roof of the... the roof of the mouth.

Now, what happens then is that... this is called a stop.

A T is a stop sound, meaning that you're not, like, following it through.

So, you're making the T, you're releasing air between your tongue and your teeth, and as you release that air, your tongue pulls back off the teeth.

So, when you're finished making this sound, your... the tip of your tongue is no longer touching the teeth because it let the air out and popped back into your mouth, and that's where you get that pop sound, that t sound.

S, on the other hand, is... your tongue is on behind the bottom teeth, but it's also a little bit raised, so it's slightly touching the top of the mouth, and the tongue is spread to the sides, th, th.

So, you notice your mouth is a little bit closed because the top of your tongue must a little bit touch the top of your mouth, and then in that space between the top of the tongue and the top of the mouth, you're letting the air go out.

So, if you put your hand just a little bit lower, s, s, you will feel that air coming out, right?

Now, the T-S sound is essentially a combination of both sounds, but... so, where are you going to put your tongue?

The tip of the tongue is behind the bottom teeth, and then the top of the tongue is touching all the way at the top, so this is where you're going to get that pop, that stop sound, t, and as you let the air through... and sorry, also, the tongue is spread to the sides.

As you let the air through, the tongue goes off the roof, so you get that pop, just like you did with the T, and the tongue came off the teeth, the tongue will come off the top of the roof, and you get that pop and the S at the same time.

Again, you have to pay a little bit of attention now while you're practicing, and then just go out into the world and speak.

So, what... another way you can think about how to practice this is just to basically try to say both, t, s, t, s, t, s, and pay attention to how your tongue is moving, t, s, t, s, t, s, right, so repeat after me, t, s, t, s, t, s, and as you're doing this, go faster, faster, faster, t, s, t, s, t, s, t, s, t, s, and then eventually, hopefully, you'll get into the T-S sound, t, which is a combination of both of these sounds together.

It looks like a T-S, it sounds like a T-S, and it's just about practicing.

Now, when it comes to these words, one of the problems, I think, that makes this a little complicated is you're adding another consonant, so by the end, you have one, two, three consonants together.

So, you have to patient, patient, and the tip of the tongue is on the roof of the mouth, and it's a vibrated sound, it's a voiced sound, and then you have to quickly switch to T-S, so patient, patience, patient.

If you do it slowly, pronounce each syllable individually, and then as you get more comfortable and you're aware of where the tongue is and how the air is flowing, speed it up, speed it up.

So, say after me, patient, patient, and then a little bit faster, patient, patient, patient.

Same thing, patience, patience, patience, patience, patience.

You need to have some patience in order to improve your pronunciation.

Now, patience is the exact same idea, patience, patience, patience, patience, patience.

Now, keep in mind that even native English speakers will sometimes not be clear what they heard.

Of course, you're always going to have context to tell you which word is being said.

They're very, very similar, and again, sometimes you're going to have to rely on context.

And if you're not sure what someone said, just ask them to repeat it.

And native speakers will say patience, they'll stress that T-S sound to make sure it's different from the C-E sound.

And the same for assistant, assistant, assistance, assistance, right?

So it's a very, very slight difference because essentially, this S sound doesn't go away.

It's still part of the word, part of the sound, it's just combined with the T sound, right?

So that's what you have to do, you have to basically, to sit, to sit, to sit, to sit.

Now, another thing you have to keep in mind, and the reason I know that all of you can pronounce the T-S sound is because you already do.

Think about plurals, like nouns or nouns that end in a T.

When you make them plural, you're adding an S and you're getting that T-S sound.

If you make a doctor visit, you have to make a visit to the doctor, then you do that.

But then the doctor says you're going to have to come back for a few more visits, visits.

When you make it in the plural, you still have the T-S sound, and a lot of you say these words with no problem.

It's when you get into the extra syllable or when there's a similar word that you start to get a little bit confused.

Don't worry, context will fix it most times, otherwise just practice making that different sound.

Here we have an S-T-S, test, test, plural, tests, tests.

Now keep in mind, and list, lists, list, lists.

Keep in mind that also in the third person singular present, meaning he, she, it, when you're adjusting the verb for that situation, you're also adding an S.

I left some food on the counter and ants came and started eating it, right?

There are a lot of words in English that end with a T that take an S for the plural or they take an S if they're a third person, if they're a verb in the third person.

So, just think about the words that you already know how to say and just apply them to the ones you're not sure about.

Now, another thing you can do is take your phone or any sort of recording device and practice saying these words, and make yourself a list of any of these words that you think are a little bit difficult to pronounce.

Say them over and over, say patient, patients, patients, and then listen and try to distinguish if you're making the different sound, especially between these two.

And the more you practice, the easier it will become, of course.

But again, the most important thing, when you're out in the world speaking to people, just speak.

I'm just showing it to you just so you understand how to practice when you're home alone, okay?

If you have any questions about this, please go to www.engvid.com.

It's very difficult to make quizzes for pronunciation lessons, so there's no quiz here.

But again, you can just ask me questions and I'll hopefully be able to answer, keeping in mind that there's no audio.

So, it's all words and typed, so keep that in mind as well.

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