I meet many non-native English speakers who have excellent grammar. However, they do not articulate word final consonant sounds strongly enough and this contributes to their accent.

One word final sound that many people fail to articulate is the past tense ed. Failing to pronounce the ed will definitely contribute to your accent!

Most of my students understand that American spoken English has 3 sounds for the past tense ed but they need to practice these sounds to make them more automatic.

Eva Easton has a nice page on her website that you can use to learn about and practice the 3 sounds of ed. Don’t forget to take the quiz at the end!

American English ed sounds

You can learn the rules for how to pronounce ed endings and much more with the book Mastering the American Accent with Audio CDs

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