تقویت لهجه ی بریتیش - حرف T

Hey guys! Welcome to our new series. This one, we’re looking at how to get British accent. I say British accent but really I mean London. Why London? Because one it’s my accent, and two because, well, let’s just say Harry Potter wasn’t from Manchester and he wouldn’t be as cool if he was from Manchester.

So there is a method to these lessons. You must follow the correct sequence of lessons to properly understand and use the British accent correctly. You ready? Let’s go!

Today we’re looking at the glottal “T” and true “T”. What are they? Well, I’m sure that you’ve heard the way that British people pronounce “Water”. There is a “T” in the middle but usually, not always, but usually British people don’t pronounce the “T”. We pronounce it like it’s stocking in the throat. Like this “Wa’er” “Wa’er”. This, it’s sometimes represented by an ‘(Apostrophe). It sounds like the middle of Uh-oh. The Uh. It’s stocking in the throat. It’s glottal. Obviously not just in “Water” in other words, “bottle” can become “Bo’le”. So the “T” is then there when you spell it but when you say it comes out like “Bo’le”. “Botton” could be “Bu’on”. Other words like “Great” could become “Grea’” and it’s very common to hear this. And it’s most common with words which end in “T”. For example “but”, “It”, “That”, “Not” and all contractions of “not”. For example “can’t”, “couldn’t”, “don’t”, “wouldn’t”, “shouldn’t”, “mustn’t”.

A common question is does this sound informal or stupid? well, it can if you use it too much. We don’t use the glottal “T” or the true “T” every single time. What sounds more natural is when you have a mix of the two? for example in a sentence like “A little bit”. You could pronounce both “T”s? But it sounds more natural to use a mix like for example “A li’le bit” or “A li’le bi’”. Could be both glottal “T”s, could be just one glottal “T” and a true “T”. It’s up to you and it sounds more natural to, to mix things up. But again you don’t want to use this in every single “T” in a sentence because yes that does sounds stupid. There are some words which you should never use the glottal “T”. Because it always sounds stupid just because it does. For example like “mountain” we never pronounce it “moun’ain”. It sounds horrible! Same with “Hotel”. No. We never say “Ho’el”. Never! It’s … sounds horrible. So there is your lesson on the glottal “T” and the true “T”. Remember use it as a mix not always glottal “T” not always true “T”. Have a mix of them together in the sentence. That’s how you sounds more natural. Ok. I’ll see you in the next class.