# pronunciation - nt (wanted, sentence)



## jesusbeni

Hello.  I have noticed that many people tend to pronounce this sound dropping the -t-, at least in american english, wich is the kind of english I usually listen to. Do I sound weird if I speak not dropping the -t? Does everybody speak like that or does it depend on the person, the situation, etc?

Thank you


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## duvija

If you know exactly the environment for those dropped [t], you can drop them. Just in case:
stressed syllable ending in 'n', followed by t + vowel, like [sén.*t*en.s],[wán.*t*ed] [Sa.cra. mén. *t*o] etc.


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## Chris K

For ordinary conversation, you will probably sound more like a native speaker if you drop the -t-, unless you are emphasizing. In more formal situations you might want to preserve it.


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## jesusbeni

Ok, thank you guys. Chris K, can you give some examples in wich you would not drop the -T?


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## Chris K

jesusbeni said:


> Ok, thank you guys. Chris K, can you give some examples in wich you would not drop the -T?



Examples of words, or examples of situations?


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## jesusbeni

Of situations please.  Sorry for not explaining myself well


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## Chris K

jesusbeni said:


> Of situations please.  Sorry for not explaining myself well



You would make a point of enunciating it if you were speaking in public before a large audience on a formal occasion (but even then maybe not, if you wanted to sound informal, as many politicians do). You would also pronounce the -t- when it was stressed, as in the following:

I want to hear _every sentence_ again, from the beginning, please.

In most situations, our brains hear the -t- because we know it's part of the word, whether it's actually clearly articulated or not.


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## Orejitas

It's more complicated than that though.  "Wanted" and "sentence" are different.  In "wanted" the "t" is dropped and the "n" is pronounced normally. In "sentence" though if you drop the "t" you have two syllabic "n" sounds next to each other.  I can't figure out quite what it is we do when we pronounce that, but I think the first "e" is nasalized, the first "n" is dropped, and maybe there's a glottal stop?  I'm not sure, but it's very different from "wanted". 

To answer your question directly, do you sound weird if you don't drop the "t"?  Not necessarily, as Chris says it's less common to drop the "t" in formal contexts and when emphasizing.  Some, but I think not many, people think it always sounds more correct not to drop the "t" and try to avoid doing so.  But since you're not a native speaker, people may think it sounds like an accent if you don't drop it when we normally do, especially if you don't pronounce some sounds quite the way a native speaker would (such as the "t" sound).  My suggestion is to try to imitate the native speakers you hear.


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## Chris K

I don't think it's a glottal stop in US pronunciation. It might be in UK. To my ear, it's just "senence."


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## duvija

Chris K said:


> I don't think it's a glottal stop in US pronunciation. It might be in UK. To my ear, it's just "senence."



That middle e is a schwa.


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## jesusbeni

Therefore, you could not  drop the -t in a word such as fantastic, could you?


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## Chris K

jesusbeni said:


> Therefore, you could not  drop the -t in a word such as fantastic, could you?



No, you can't, because the stress is on the second syllable. But you can drop it in "fantasy."


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## duvija

jesusbeni said:


> Therefore, you could not drop the -t in a word such as fantastic, could you?




No, in 'fantastic', the stress is on the second syllable. In order to drop that t, the nasal has to belong to a stressed syllable (or the t cannot be in the syllable that carries the stress of the word). 
And you can't drop it if that 't' is followed by a consonant instead of a vowel. "Interesting", pronounced 'intresting', where you drop a schwa but not the [t].


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## duvija

Cannot in 'anterior'. (stress in the syll containing the t)
Cannot in 'intrepid' /intricate (t followed by a consonant, regardless of stress placement)


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## Orejitas

Chris K said:


> I don't think it's a glottal stop in US pronunciation. It might be in UK. To my ear, it's just "senence."



You must be from a different region than I am or something.  I definitely don't pronounce it "senence".


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## Chris K

duvija said:


> No, in 'fantastic', the stress is on the second syllable. In order to drop that t, the nasal has to belong to a stressed syllable (or the t cannot be in the syllable that carries the stress of the word).
> And you can't drop it if that 't' is followed by a consonant instead of a vowel. "Interesting", pronounced 'intresting', where you drop a schwa but not the [t].



Agreed, although you do hear slovenly (non-standard) pronunciations like "in'resting" or "innersting."


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## Chris K

Orejitas said:


> You must be from a different region than I am or something.  I definitely don't pronounce it "senence".



I think I do hear different pronunciations from different speakers on this one. Unless I really think about it I pronounce it as if the -t- had never existed: "senence" or "sennence."


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## Orejitas

Chris K said:


> I think I do hear different pronunciations from different speakers on this one. Unless I really think about it I pronounce it as if the -t- had never existed: "senence" or "sennence."



Here we go:

*4 Bottom of the Staircase [T is Held]*
With -tain, -tten and some TN combinations, the T is held. The "held T" is, strictly speaking, not really a T at all. Remember, [t] and [n] are very close in the mouth. If you have [n] immediately after [t], you don't pop the [t]—the tongue is in the [t] position, but your release the air for the [n] not the [t]. Make sure you don't put a schwa before the [n]. An important point to remember is that you need a sharp upward sliding intonation up to the "held T," then a quick drop for the N.

*Written, certain, forgotten, sentence
He's forgotten the carton of satin mittens.
She's certain that he has written it.
Martin has gotten a kitten.

*Here's the link, it describes 3 other kinds of "t" sounds too:  http://www.americanaccent.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11&Itemid=11


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## duvija

Chris K said:


> Agreed, although you do hear slovenly (non-standard) pronunciations like "in'resting" or "innersting."



Yes. And sometimes also [índresting]


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## uptown

duvija said:


> Yes. And sometimes also [índresting]


And the "dr" there can quickly become a "j" sound, so that it becomes injresting.


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## duvija

uptown said:


> And the "dr" there can quickly become a "j" sound, so that it becomes injresting.




Yes! and at least in 'Shikeago', it's the most common pronunciation (together with the voiceless counterpart: 'street' = s[ch]reet.


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## jesusbeni

Thank you all. My last doubt, I think...  Can this "dropping" be found in Brithish english or just in American?


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## duvija

jesusbeni said:


> Thank you all. My last doubt, I think... Can this "dropping" be found in Brithish english or just in American?



When I studied it, it was supposed to be pan-English, but it would be nice to have some British people confirm it.


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## Outsider

I've heard nonnatives drop the "t" in words like "wanted" ("waned"), and I do not recommend it. It often stands out as a foreign accent. There is probably something more subtle going on here in the native pronunciation than just deleting the /t/ sound.

I suggest also taking a look at this thread.


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## duvija

Outsider said:


> I've heard nonnatives drop the "t" in words like "wanted" ("waned"), and I do not recommend it. It often stands out as a foreign accent. There is probably something more subtle going on here in the native pronunciation than just deleting the /t/ sound.
> 
> I suggest also taking a look at this thread.




Of course, stuff happens. Automatically, the vowels before a voiceless stop are shorter than the ones before a voiced one. Even if we pronounce the stops almost the same, trust me, the vowels are slightly different. Sometimes we forget that the pronunciation of a word is a single entity, with assimilations, lengthening, shortenings, etc. phonemic, and not always phonetic. It's subtle enough for a non-native not to hear it, but the natives 'feel' the differences.


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## RebeJC

This is an innerestin thread.   American accents are as different -- possibly more so -- as Mexican and European.  The simple word "car", for example, is pronounced "cah" on the east coast and cah-er in the midwest.  So, when we speak of swallowing or clipping or dropping t's, everything will depend on where you are in the world.  

I've taught my students "proper pronunciation of English" based on the spelling/phonetic rules I teach.  When we look at words such as "again" and "around", the phonetically correct pronunciation should be  "a (long a) gain (long a)" and "a (long a) round".  We say "uh gin" and "uh roun", because we are lazy and speak too quickly! lol

Your ear hears the dropped t's, but I don't think you should necessarily "try" to drop them.  If you do, you run the risk of sounding a bit silly.  This is where immersion in the language is invaluable!  If you consistently hear the same accent of English, you'll begin to pronounce your words the same way.  [Case in point: my daughter is constantly correcting my very Sinaloan way of saying "aquí está".  She says it seems strange to hear "aytah" coming out of my mouth, since I'm so obviously a güeda! jejeje]  Keep listening and keep practicing and as you become more comfortable with the words, some of the "stiffness and sharpness" will work its way out of your accent.  That's my opinion anyway!


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## Istriano

Longman English Pronunciation Dictionary gives all ''droppable'' N's in italics 
This is perfectly standard pronunciation in allegro style (the one used in normal speech), just like the T voicing/tapping and liaisons.
Overpronouncing will make you sound more foreign than pronouncing words in a normal way. This is similar to using I WILL NOT or WHERE IS exclusively in situations when most native speakers say I WON'T or WHERE'S.


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## Forero

In case it might help, I'll try to explain how I pronounce _wanted_, beginning with how I pronounce _want_. My dialect is Southern, but not the famous _r_-dropping kind of Southern.

The vowel I use in _want_ only occurs in a few words: _one_ = _won_, _once_, _want_. It has two parts, the second of which is a schwa offglide, and the first of which is a nasal vowel about halfway between the _an_ I learned for French _tante_ (a nasalized version of the French _a_ in _bas_) and the _on_ I learned for French _bon_ (a nasalized version of the close French _o_ in _beau_). Curiously, I think the schwa offglide is not nasalized.

The final _t_ I almost never release, so it is basically just a devoicing of the end of the _n_.

But when I add the unstressed schwih + _d_, the extra syllable causes the schwa offglide to drop out, and the stressed-unstressed pattern weakens the _nt_ to a sort of nasalized unvoiced flap. The "_t_" is released as any flap, for example in _better_, but the _n_ loses most of its existence, leaving only its ghost in the _a_ and in the flapped _t_.

And when I speak quickly (in Istriano's "allegro style"), the nasalized flap becomes voiced to some degree, making it into a sort of flapped _n_, the nasalization from the departed _n_ on top of the flap that remains of the _t_.

The vowel length in _wanted_ is next to meaningless because of multiple combined lengthening and shortening influences, but the flapped nature of what is left of the _nt_ is audible, if you know what to listen for.


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