written, lighten, curtain, certain...

Whenever I hear movies from the USA, I hear them pronounced with the stopped /t/ sound. I don't remember about British, though.

In AmE, I think it's most common to pronounce all of them with a stopped "t."

Occasionally, I hear individuals aspirating the 't' on some of these words, but it's not what I would consider common. Some of it may be regional.

I suspect that what you called stopped t I call unreleased t.

All of your examples contain unreleased t followed by syllabic N, as do Latin, cotton, gluten, gelatinous, carton, Parton, shorten, scrutiny, ...

In AmE these are certainly not aspirated.

CJ

What's "unreleased t?" Does it mean you don't pronounce t and go directly to n?

To say an unreleased t ('stopped' t, if you will) you place your tongue, lips, and jaw in the position for saying a t, but instead of carrying through with a definite (aspirated, released) t sound, you suddenly stop. You may even stop the sound in your throat at the same time (glottal stop). This gives the sound of the beginning of t but not the follow-through sound of the t. It is practi

More like:

It's a rat.
It's on a plate.

That's the same plate that has the luggage in another post, right?

CalifJimThat's the same plate that has the luggage in another post, right?

Not quite the

Ah! That's it! How unobservant of me! Now that I take a second look, I see quite clearly that it's a thingy!

CJ