American English Pronunciation: The Stop T

I’m excited for you because in this video you’re going to perfect one of the main consonant sounds in the American English accent, and it’s a sound you might not even know about. I’m talking about the stop T. The trick is, it’s actually not a sound. There’s no sound. The air stops, and that’s why it’s called a stop T. But it’s different from leaving the T out. And it’s easy to hear when we slow it down.

Listen to this. The word is ‘outdoors’, and it’s in slow motion. You’ll hear two separate, distinct parts.

Outdoors

Let’s look at the volume of that word.

Outdoors.

Do you see this blank spot? No sound. That’s the stop of air, the stop T.

Outdoors.

So if the Stop T is no sound, isn’t that just the same thing as no T? And if that’s true, what’s the difference between ‘fly’, which has no T, and ‘flight’, that ends in a Stop T but has all the same sounds? By the way, this is the symbol for the stop T in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Fly

Flight

They don’t sound the same, do they? But we’re not hearing a T, tt, sound. We’re not hearing that release, flight.

Flight.

There’s no T. but it sounds different from ‘fly’ which has the same sounds but no T. Let’s compare them again.

Fly

Flight

Fly

Flight

So the difference is in how the sound before the t sounds. In fly,

Fly

Fly, the pitch goes up, and then it comes back down, fly. It sorts of tapers off. But in the word ‘flight’, the sound has an abrupt stop. It doesn’t have that falling or tapering off. Flight. Fly. That abrupt stop is the Stop T. Let’s listen to a couple more pairs.

Sue

Suit

Day

Date

How do we make this stop of air? And why not make a full tt, T sound? The thing about American English is we love smoothness. Everything links together in a flow of continuous sound. That’s one of the characteristics of American English. But tt isn’t very smooth, it’s a stop of air, tt, and a release of air with some energy. So the Stop T came about, where we skip the ttt release part, to make our speech more smooth. We Stop the air, but then we just go in to the next sound without tt, the release. Take, for example, the word ‘fitness’.

Fitness

Fitttttt-ness. F consonant, IH vowel, a stop: fit. Then the N sound. Fit-ness. Fitness. To stop the air, I cut it off in my throat at the vocal cords. The tongue c an be in position for the T, but it doesn’t have to be. Fit— the air is stopped there, fit, fit-ness.

Fitness

Here are a couple more words with a stop t in the middle, hear the stop, then the next sound.

Outlast

Partner

Shutdown

When do you make a stop T? Most Americans turn a T into a Stop T in two cases: when the next sound is a consonant, like in ‘shutdown’ or ‘fitness’. Also, at the end of a thought group or sentence. For example, “He’s late!” Late, not lay. He late!

We also make a T a stop T at the end of the word when the next word begins with a consonant like in the phrase ‘not now’, not now’. That abrupt stop, that’s the Stop T at the end of a sentence. With the stop T, you don’t hear tt that crisp True T that you hear in, for example, ‘attain’

Attain

A True T has its place, but not in the words we’ll study here.

Now you’ll hear and see a whole bunch of words up close and in slow motion with a Stop T in the middle. Then there’s a section where we’re comparing a Stop T with a word that is the same but with no T sound, like ‘fly’ ‘flight’. This is going to help you really understand this sound, but nothing is as helpful as repeating out loud, so I really encourage you to do that with both the slow motion and regular-paced words.

Apartment

Artful

Assortment

Atlas

Basketball

Bat boy

Batman

Bluntly

Butler

Catfish

Catnap

Chutney

Compartment

Countdown

Cutback

Dartboard

Department

Dirtbag

Doubtful

Fitness

Flatness

Football

Footbridge

Fretfully

Fruitful

Hotbed

Hotdog

Itself

Letdown

Lightweight

Meatball

Nutmeg

Outlast

Outbid

Outbreak

Outburst

Outdated

Outdone

Outdoors

Outfit

Outfox

Outgrow

Outhouse

Outlier

Partly

Partner

Pitfall

Fly

Flight

Fly

Flight

Might

Fall

Fault

Fall

Fault

Lie

Light

Lie

Light

Gay

Gate

Gay

Gate

Sue

Suit

Sue

Suit

Away

Await

Away

Await

Tray

Trait

Tray

Trait

Bay

Bait

Bay

Bait

Day

Date

Day

Date

Lay

Late

Lay

Late

Stay

State

Stay

State

Ray

Rate

Ray

Rate

Play

Plate

Play

Plate

Slay

Slate

Slay

Slate

Buy

Bite

Buy

Bite

Sigh

Site

Sigh

Site

Cue

Cute

Cue

Cute

May

Mate

May

Mate

Know

Note

Know

Note

Toe

Tote

Toe

Tote

Flew

Flute

Flew

Flute

Spy

Spite

Spy

Spite

Row

Wrote

Row

Wrote

Rye

Right

Rye

Right

Beat

Fee

Feet

Fee

Feet

Mow

Moat

Mow

Moat

Bow

Boat

Bow

Boat

Heat

Goat

Sea

Seat

Sea

Seat

Spa

Spot

Spa

Spot

Blow

Bloat

Blow

Bloat

Plea

Pleat

Plea

Pleat

Wheat

Knee

Neat

Knee

Neat

Rue

Root

Rue

Root

All my YouTube channel members get an extra video here. It’s training stop T at the end of a word like date and fit. So, if you’re a channel member, thank you. That video has already dropped for you. If you’re not a member and you want to see that video and support this channel, please click the join button.

Using the stop T in your spoken English is going to help you sound more natural when speaking American English. Listening and repeating out loud, repetition, is going to be the key to making the habit and speaking English with ease. If you want to train all the sounds, and other characteristics like smoothness and linking, stress and contrast, check out my online school, Rachel’s English Academy, where thousands of students are going through the training and creating the habits to speak American English with clarity, ease, and confidence, all with the help of our fantastic teachers. Join today and try it out.

Thanks for watching. Keep your learning going now with this video, and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on. I absolutely love being your English teacher. That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.