Name: Stop Sounds Overview - American English Pronunciation
Uploaded: 2017-11-04T19:37:41.000Z
Duration: 12 min 19 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 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:

in which the air stream is at least partially blocked

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,

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

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

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

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

we'll talk about each stop sound in detail

There are six distinct stop sounds in American English.

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

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,

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

See how all the stops are grouped in pairs?

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

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

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

They are called the voiceless stop sounds.

Don't confuse the voiced and voiceless sounds,

as voicing may change the meaning of words.

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

Stop sounds exist in every language in the world.

What makes American pronunciation of these sounds so special?

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.

there's a rule which is easy to remember.

If a stop sound starts a word or a stressed syllable

stop sounds are pronounced without a puff of air.

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.

Many non-native English speakers believe that Americans drop

or swallow the stop sounds at the end of words.

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

These are essentially positional variants of the same sounds.

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:

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Stop Sounds Overview - American English Pronunciation

essentially

pronunciation

accent

critical