The Center for Confident American English Communication

Accent reduction instructors like to say that “T is for Trouble”. That’s because the letter T has several different sounds when you are speaking American English. The American T is one consonant that most of my accent reduction coaching clients need help with. Listen to this great story on Voice of America’s Special English to

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One of my very observant students from India wrote to ask why the word “it” sounds different in a sentence than it does when you say it alone. Here is my response: When we say the word “it” in a sentence the sound of the T changes. The location of the T within a word

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People often ask me, “Why does the ‘t’ sound different in the middle of American English words?” Here is the answer… In American English a ‘t’ in the middle of a word often sounds more like a quick /d/. This quick /d/ sound is called a tapped t and it occurs frequently in spoken American

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