Re: Question about consonants in English

--- Geijss Streijde <gijsstrider@...> wrote:

> Hello people,
>
> Thank you for taking your time to read this message.
>
> As English is my L2, I have a tiny issue with the pronouncation of it
> and was wondering if you had any pointers on how to correct my
> pronouncation.
>
> The problem is that in my L1 it is impossible for a word to end in a
> voiced consonant, as such I find it impossible to do this in other
> languages.
>
> An example I can give is the following. The word 'Bed' I pronounce
> naturally as [b3t], and if I try really hard to voice the /d/ it comes
> out as [b3.d@] or [b3d.d@].
>
I'm not familiar with your notation since phonetics is not at all interesting
to me, but paying close attention to how I pronounce "bed" there is "almost" a
vowel following the final "d". Pronouncing it "beduh" is much closer to the
American pronunciation than "bet". But instead of fully pronouncing the final
vowel sound, just "think" it. Looking at the wave form of spoken "bed" in an
audio editor it's clear that the vocal chords keep producing sound after the
release of the "d", but only for a short time, at at a lower level than a
normal vowel.

The other thing I notice is that the 'd' is held closed for a short time while
being voiced. You cannot prolong the pre-release portion of "t" because no
sound is being made until the release, but the closed "d" does make a voiced
sound prior to its release. Try pronouncing "bed---d" with a prolonged "d" and
see how much different it is from trying to pronounce "bet---t", which cannot
be pronounced because the "t" cannot be prolonged. ("d---d" indicates a single
prolonged "d" sound, not two separate "d" sounds.)

--gary