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Nguyenhonghai1991 Posted 16 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

How to pronounce two sound "t" and "s" when they sit beside

In my dictionary, the pronunciation of the word "statesman" is "steits..." but when I listen this word I can't listen the second "t" of his word. Why? We don't need to pronounce the second "t", we only need to pronounce the sound "s"?
  

Top answer

You probably don't hear the second t because it is unreleased , which means your tongue doesn't leave the roof of your mouth and you don't hear the release of air at the end. It isn't as easy to hear as a regular t sound. To make the ts sound, you put the tip of your tongue on the top of your mouth right behind your top teeth, as if you were going to say t, but instead of releasing the t, you move your tongue down slightly and say s.

— Lisascott

  • You probably don't hear the second t because it is unreleased , which means your tongue doesn't leave the roof of your mouth and you don't hear the release of air at the end.
  • It isn't as easy to hear as a regular t sound.
  • To make the ts sound, you put the tip of your tongue on the top of your mouth right behind your top teeth, as if you were going to say t, but instead of releasing the t, you move your tongue down slightly and say s.
  • To hear the difference, you can try saying bass- bats, toss-tots, sis-sits.
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4 Answers
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You probably don't hear the second t because it is unreleased, which means your tongue doesn't leave the roof of your mouth and you don't hear the release of air at the end. It isn't as easy to hear as a regular t sound. To make the ts sound, you put the tip of your tongue on the top of your mouth right behind your top teeth, as if you were going to say t, but instead of releasing the t, y
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The /t/ before an /s/ is released as a sibilant (that is, /s/). It is pronounced, and you can hear it.

However, in some informal fast speech or in some dialects, that kind of /t/ can be left out sometimes. That's why you might sometimes hear "let's" pronounced as "less", and "that's" as "thass".
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I think that I didn't make myself clear in my first post, because we are describing the same sound. What I meant to say with my word comparisons was to emphasize why it is important to put the t in there, as you have described. My point was that the sound is not a full t-s, which would be difficult to say, but a modified t influenced by the s. If the t is ignored, you get bass in
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nguyenhonghai1991We don't need to pronounce the second "t", we only need to pronounce the sound "s"?
No. You pronounce both "t"s.

If you can hear the difference between "place" and "plates", you should be able to hear the difference between "staceman" (a made-up word) and "statesman". Maybe the "t" is said so quickly that you don't notice that it ve
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