Why do Americans pronounce T's as D's?
Most of the time when we do this, we're slurring. It's quicker. We get into the habit of it since, as you said, it's part of accent. I live in Alabama, USA. I pronounce both those words the way you said- pronouncing the T's as D's. However, I don't say "to" like "do" or "duh". More like "tuh". The accent varies on some words. I'm aware of it, but I see it as normal and not too much a big deal. Rarely I'll notice, but when I do it takes me a few seconds before I realize it's not the correct way to say it. I never really care- it's normal to me. I believe I get simply from the fact that I live in America, and since babies develop the way of speaking they're around, and I'm all around people who talk like this, I mimicked it and now I have it. My grandfather has a very thick Alabamian accent- watch any Western/Cowboy movie; he sounds like that. My mother sounds somewhat like this, and everyone else just either slightly does or just has the pronunciation. I developed it and at this point slurring the words is hard to stop. I don't mind it, because it's not a big deal to me. As long as people can get the gist of what I'm saying, it's fine. Now, when I start TYPING like that- that's when it's gotten out of hand. Oddly, I usually knew how to spell things correctly despite how I said them when I was little. Of course, some Americans don't do this. Eh... some. All places in America have different accents. I suppose some Americans could pronounce them correctly, but I've only visited states where the people I met did not, so I don't know. Even on TV shows, most of the time the Americans will do that unless they're supposed to be faking an accent.
Why can't Americans pronounce their Ts?
I have noticed that, and I also noticed from living around the west coast and the east coast, its actually all about the accent, in some regions they do prenounce the T's in others they don't. MidnighSky, why are you being so diffensive???? It was just a question, we are in yahoo answers, not yahoo attack. MidnightSky says: It occurs merely out of laziness. Or in some cases because they have a speech impediment or a physical disability (such a cleft palate or soft palate that does not allow for proper speaking or loss of hearing).====> So you are saying that people in the west coast or midwest are either lazy or have a physical disability???? What a way of putting it....
Why do Americans pronounce "t" as "r"?
Almost no English dialect has kept the original pronunciation of the word butter, leading me to believe that it must have been phonetically difficult for English-speakers long before the colonization of the United States. RP speaker say but-ah, Irish speakers say budder, Americans say it with an alveolar tap, and Aussies usually combine the tap and the non-rhotacisim. As far as I can think of, only some varieties of Scottish and South African English say but-er, and many of them pronounce r as a trill instead of a retroflex. As for why the combination of the t sound and the final r was difficult, I can't say for. But it doesn't feel natural when I say but-er. I'd reckon it has something to do with the fact that English is a strongly stress-timed language, and butt and er are both very strong syllables. -er is always the unaccented syllable, but different dialects have taken different measures to weaken it. The British got rid of the rhotic, while Americans softened the transition. Once again, I don't know if this is exactly right, but it is a good a theory as any.
Why do Americans tend to not pronounce the letter "t" in some English words like "exactly"?
I don’t know why, but I do know the source: California. I believe the enormous influx of Dustbowl Refugees during the 30s and 40s plus the rise of the laid-back surf culture brought a softening of sounds to the west coast. Perhaps that is why here in California, we tend to sand down our t’s to d’s or eliminate them altogether. “My sister thinks Santa Monica is important” becomes “My sisder thinks Sanna Monica is impor’unt.” Again, I don’t know exactly what caused this aberration, but because movies, TV shows and ads are made here and imported around the world, ours has become the standard “non-regional accent” for actors. The SNL sketch “The Californians” uses an exaggerated (and hilarious!) version of that slurring of consonants, but there are people here that use a dialect that is very close. And I’m all, like, duuuuuuuude!BTW, if you want to have some inside fun the next time you see “The Californians”, be aware that there is a distinction between northern California and southern California lexicon, and it is due to that very Californian institution: the Freeway. Southern Californians say, “the 405,” “the 101,” etc., while northern Californians simply call them by the numbers without the articles: 280, 17, 680, etc.Freeways were introduced to California, beginning in the south and working their way to the north. In order to make them more palatable, the government gave them names, the first being the prestigious-sounding “Imperial Highway” “Golden State Highway” (“Highway” quickly gave way to “Freeway”, as in “San Diego Freeway,” “Ventura Freeway,” “Hollywood Freeway” and so on).In the 70s, the government dropped the titles and simply gave them numbers, which northern Californians, who had not had freeways for as long, used. But southern Californians had lived with the titles for so long, they simply transferred the “the” to the numbered system: the 5, the 10, etc. You can hear Jimmy Kimmel refer to heavy traffic on “the 405” (formerly known as the San Diego Freeway - always packed!) in his monologues; the traffic-obsessed “Californian” characters like “Stoor” (Stewart) tell each other to “take the 101 to the 40-FIE!”, etc.Just, please: Don’t call it “Cali!”
Why do Americans tend to pronounce ‘metal’ as ‘medal’ or ‘meddle’?
Because North American accents of English have a productive phonological process where coronal stops (/t/, /d/) are turned into a flap in intervocalic contexts (also, the context is sometimes determined by stress patterns, but don’t ask me about these intricacies). This process neutralizes the phonemic distinction between /t/ and /d/.I elaborated this in Clarissa Lohr's answer to What is neutralization in phonology?
Why do Americans pronounce 0 as o rather than zero or 'not'?
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I’m glad you brought up the issue.When I came to India, I was curious to know how people here give phone numbers. I found out there is no pattern at all! Different people give the numbers in different ways.In the US, there is one, shared way to give phone numbers. A friend of mine who works in a call center was having trouble understanding his American customers until I explained it to him. Here’s the American system:Never use the word “double”Never use the words “three times”Every digit must be named individually. (there are two, rare exceptions to this rule)The digit 0 is named “oh.” (To repeat, you asked, why, and I don’t know why.)The ten digits are recited in groups of three, three, and four.For instance: the phone number 5552233445 is given this way in the US:Five five five. Two two three., Three four four five.In India, the same number, 5552233445 might be given this way:Five three times (or triple five), double two, double three, double four, five.The exceptions to the “name each digit” are numbers ending in 00 or 000. Then, in the US, you use the word “hundred” or “thousand.” For example:9876543200 is Nine eight seven. Six five four. Three two hundred. and9876543000 is Nine eight seven. Six five four. Three thousand.The only small advantage of the American system is this: it is a standard. So, whenever you ask a phone number, you know that you will hear and write the numbers in the three groups: Three digits. Three digits. Four digits. 987–654–3210. You never have to guess if the person is going to name a group of five, four, three or two digits, ,or a single digit. You never have to interpret a word such as “double” or “three times.” The phone number will always be recited in the same way.
Do Americans pronounce "late" with flap "t" or stop "t"?
Q:A: (I will discuss the phonetics of this question in layman’s terms.)The problem with the letter 't' is that to pronounce it like it is supposed to be pronounced, takes a lot of effort in conversation. We think that a 't' is to be pronounced like a 't'. But, how is a 't' supposed to be pronounced?Take the well known line from Shakespeare:"To be or not to be, that is the question!"Observe what your tongue does with each of the 't's in the line.To - your lips are rolled and your tongue doesn't touch any part of your mouthnot - your tongue touches the gums just behind the front teeth. This is the only true T in the entire sentence.to - the tongue detaches againthat - the tongue touches the front teeth but nothing else.the - same as thatquestion - pronounced like kwess-chinSo the letter T is just a generic standin for a whole range of pronunciations that sound like D or R or Cha, etc. The true T is heard in words such as “talk” “true” “stop” “return”. In each of these words, the tongue touches the upper gums.Flap T is just like the D sound. For example, city or better.We pronounce city, not as sitty but as siddy with an almost imperceptible D sound, what’s called the schwa pronunctiation.better is pronounced like bedda, again with the schwa D. The tongue doesn’ t play a role. In fact, well heeled Britishers pronounce it as bet_tha which makes them sound sophisticated to Americans.The Stop T is the true T, with the tongue touching the upper gum line.Americans pronounce late with a Stop T .
How do Americans pronounce "don't"?
It can be difficult to hear and that’s because we say it so quickly and make two swift movements when uttering the word don’t:The word is pronounced /doʊnʔ/ in spoken A.E. and is difficult to catch because although we make the formation for the /t/ by tapping the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, we stop the air in our epiglottis, thus ending the word in a glottal stop. Non-native speakers are probably caught off-guard by this, as they can physically see us forming the /t/, but do not hear it.Another reason for this can be that /n/ and /t/ are both formed in the same fashion, by tapping the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge and so can result in the pronunciation /doʊn/ through assimilation, depending on the speaker.Additionally, the situation can vary depending on the phonological environment:If the word following don’t starts with an ’n’ sound, then the /t/ sound is often deleted entirely: I don’t know. → I don know (I /doʊn/ /noʊ/) ; I donno (I /dənoʊ/)If the word following don’t starts with a ‘t’ sound, then the /t/ is only pronounced for the following word: Don’t tell her → Don tell her (/doʊn/ /tɛl/ herThe above situations change when emphasis is placed on the word in question. When emphasized, don’t can still end in a glottal stop: I don’t know→ I /dounʔ/ /noʊ/When expressing anger, the speaker may put so much emphasis on don’t, that they can end up actually pronouncing the ‘t’: I don’t know! → I /dount/ /noʊ/Keep in mind that the explanation above is very general and can vary depending on the speaker, phonological environment, and regional dialects.For more information on phonology, you can consult books on phonology/phonological theory. For a quick view on the phonological sounds of American English, you can visit: http://soundsofspeech.uiowa.edu
Why do Americans pronounce the word "o" as "a" or "ah"?
That's not all Americans. In fact it's a small few from Northern America like Jersey or Michigan. I haven't heard many people talk like that. You're such a bigoted a*ss. People say us Americans are bad, but I never see them being as absolutely condescending as foreigners are to us. You think you're so superior...guess what, you aren't.
Why can't many Americans pronounce "Nuclear"?
First, the pronunciation "nucular" is considered non-standard by Americans. You hear about it because some prominent people have used it this way. (Bush-bashers like to act like he came up with it on his own. They also somehow have failed to notice that Jimmy Carter --who was a nuclear engineer in the Navy!!-- has always said it that way too! I'm also told Eisenhower said it this way.) Second, it is 'stoopid' to assume something about someone' intelligence from their accent, regionalisms, use of 'nonstandard forms' or even outright personal mispronunciations. There are brilliant folk who 'sound like hicks' to others of us, and people of quite "refined speech" who are dim bulbs. Finally, this sort of inversion of sounds (the linguistic term is "metathesis") is a fairly natural occurrence in languages of all sorts. (I used to think this sort of thing was "wrong", until I studied Hebrew and learned about the regular metathesis of certain verb forms [in this case, reflected in the spelling].) There are lots of reasons for this, though perhaps the main one is that the inversion of sounds makes it much easier to pronounce. A fun example is seen in the way young children often do this, as in saying 'pisghetti' for 'spaghetti', or my own daugher's 'chicken' for 'kitchen', but adults do it too. Some result in dialectal or nonstandard forms (e.g., saying /ax/ for the word "ask", though this is actually a very old variant, reflected in Chaucer!). Some are widely accepted, sometimes even THE standard pronunciation (e.g., saying /comf-ter-ble/ for "comfortable". In fact, if not for this sort of inversion we'd still be saying 'brid' rather than the (corrupted?) form 'bird', and 'thrid' instead of 'third'! It also accounts for why we say "tornado" though the word is derived from Spanish "tronada". In the case of 'nuclear', the ending -ular is much more common in English, and there is a tendency to adopt words to sounds and patterns elsewhere in the language. But even more basic than that -- 'nucular' allows you to use two "back vowels" /oo/ and /uh/ (i.e., vowel-sounds made in the back of the throat), which is easier than switching to the front vowel /ee/.