How to pronounce "s" after "t" and "d"

G

gnihs

Member
China, Hong Kong
China: Cantonese;Traditional Chinese
For example, "sets", "trends". Will you pronounce them with your tongue sticking behind the upper incisors when pronounce the "t" before the "s"? I feel hard to do that, and I always pronounce them by ignoring the sounds of "t" or "d". Could anyone tell me how to pronounce them perfectly?
 
    • Hi,

    In both of these words (and indeed any other plural words I can think of ending in consonants in the singular form), the "t" and the "s" are both distinctly pronounced.

    You will find some useful links here to synthesise text to speech and hear the correct pronunciation. :)
     
    I'm not a native speaker but I just listened to this book about pronouncing the s in plural or in verbs in the present tense.


    If the word ends with a voiced sound like g or d, the s is pronounced voiced as will, i.e z
    If the word ends with a voiceless sound like k or t, the s is pronounced voiceless as will, i.e s

    here I found this http://esl.about.com/od/speakingenglish/a/voiced.htm
     
    Sound interesting. But can you please give us any information on accent reduction and how to pick up correct pronouncation.
     
    As I said I'm not native and I'm myself still learning how to pronounce correctly. Sorry, I won't be able to give any creditable information. But I help whenever I can.
     
    As has been said, 'trends' is pronounced 'trenz', since the 'z' sound is basically 'ds'. In British English it is common to replace the 't' with a glottal stop, which might be easier.
     
    RosyIvory said:
    I'm not a native speaker but I just listened to this book about pronouncing the s in plural or in verbs in the present tense.


    If the word ends with a voiced sound like g or d, the s is pronounced voiced as will, i.e z
    If the word ends with a voiceless sound like k or t, the s is pronounced voiceless as will, i.e s

    here I found this http://esl.about.com/od/speakingenglish/a/voiced.htm
    Click to expand...
    The rules this link points to are not entirely accurate, but it is true that the pronunciation of the -s, -es, and -'s endings added to nouns and verbs in English depends entirely on the final sound of the word to which the ending is added.

    And the explanation given is correct for -s after -t or d.
    Man_from_India said:
    Sound interesting. But can you please give us any information on accent reduction and how to pick up correct pronouncation.
    Click to expand...
    How to reduce or eliminate an "accent" depends on the accent in question. For example in Chinese, the ts and dz sounds are common but ts cannot end a syllable. Spanish, on the other hand, first devoiced its dz sound to a ts and centuries ago replaced ts with s most of the Spanish-speaking world but with a th sound in some places.

    In other words, Chinese speakers and Chinese speakers tend to have very different difficulties with English -ts and -dz.

    To explain the English -ts and -dz sounds to both Chinese speakers and Spanish speakers, it is usually best to provide examples of native English pronunciation and accurate descriptions of the mechanism for making the sounds rather than going into all the things that don't sound native.
    Copperknickers said:
    As has been said, 'trends' is pronounced 'trenz', since the 'z' sound is basically 'ds'. In British English it is common to replace the 't' with a glottal stop, which might be easier.
    Click to expand...
    I disagree with the statement that a z sound is basically ds. What happens to the d sound in trends is due to its being sandwiched in between an n and a z. When speaking quickly, we tend to omit d after n, and it is particularly natural to pronounce, for example, lends and lens identically except in very careful speech.
     
    American usage has progressed (regressed?!) more than British in the question of voiced consonants.

    For 2000 years all through Europe there has been a tendency for languages to evolve, by vocalising intervocalic consonants and eventually losing them. This means for instance that oculis (Latin for eye) became oglis and eventually oeil in modern French.

    In the move of the English language from Britain to the USA, later has become pronounced lader, latter as ladder. I'm not surprised to hear that the 'd' is disappearing from lends. Another hundred years and it may well be pronounced /lez/, as lets sometimes is already. Only spelling holds language together!
     
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