# pronunciacion - eighty, twenty



## pelukas_vigo

Hola,
Es algo que me atormenta desde siempre y solo hoy me he atrevido a preguntar,porque estoy aburrido de tener siempre la misma duda.
Porque la t final en estas palabras twenty,eighty.... no se escucha y es casi como una d suave. Vale supongo ke me direis que los ingleses suelen pronunciar las consonates mas suaves que los españoles (vease la r por ejemplo). Pero¿po que otras palabras que tienen el mismo fonema que la t, esta t se escuha perfectamente y en las palabras que os he puesto,eighty twenty,apenas se escucha?

¿Cual es la pronunciacion correcta?
eighty= /eidi/
twenty=/twendi/

gracias anticipadas


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## chileno

las palabras que terminan en ...*nty* como es el caso de twe*nty* la T se pronuncia completa o se omite tuénti o tuéni. Generalmente se omite.

eighty = éiri.


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## 3blackdogs

En el inglés estadounidense, cuando una palabra termina con "ty" y el acento hablado cae en la primera sílaba, se pronuncia la "t" de esa manera suave. Otros ejemplos son "city" /sIdi/ y "patty" /pædi/.


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## Dandee

Is it considered correct to pronounce tweni (20) instead of twenti?. I have heard the first pronunciation quite often, perhaps more often than the second one.

Dandee


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## jtLeebs

Hi dandee, I'm not sure if we can ever say that a certain pronunciation is correct or incorrect. It depends on where you are, what kind of people you are with, etc.

But, I would say that is is _very_ common to hear it pronounced "tweni" (me included!).


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## flyingcabbage

I think that's a pronunciation only used in (certain parts of) the USA. I've never heard anyone in Ireland or the UK pronounce it like that


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## ptak30

No, it isn't correct to pronounce it tweni. People will regard you as being rather uneducated (here in the UK). It is used in films and TV shows by actors as part of their characterisation, when playing such people.  Why would you want to pronounce it incorrectly when you know the correct pronunciation?


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## Moreau416

When English speakers in the US are talking fast, or to friends or people they know well, they will use "tweni" instead of "twenti." It isn't necessarily _incorrect_, but if someone were to use it at a job interview or talking to an adult, it would sound as if the person were being disrespectful or they were uneducated. I would keep it safe and stick with "twenti"


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## fenixpollo

ptak30 said:


> No, it isn't correct to pronounce it tweni. People will regard you as being rather uneducated (here in the UK). It is used in films and TV shows by actors as part of their characterisation, when playing such people. Why would you want to pronounce it incorrectly when you know the correct pronunciation?


 Because you know that "tweni" is one of the correct pronunciations in the United States.


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## Billbasque

Taken from an article in the Wikipedia:

"When /t/ follows /n/ and precedes an unstressed vowel, as in _winter_, the /t/ is pronounced by some speakers of American English as a nasalized flap that is identical to the /n/ flap and hence becomes essentially silent, so that for example /nt/ is indistinguishable from /n/ in _winter_ / _winner_"

That really hit me for the first time when I heard someone pronounce the name "Martin" in a movie, and it sounded pretty much like "Mar-in" to me.


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## Spug

fenixpollo said:


> Because you know that "tweni" is one of the correct pronunciations in the United States.




I couldn't agree more. In fact, if you pronounce the second _t_ in _twenty _in the South, most people will conclude either that it's an affectation or that English is your second language.


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## Dandee

What excellent replies, so clear and didactic!. I guessed that "tweni" could be of common and well accepted use in the USA. *Ptak30* and *Moreau416* thanks for your particular opinions, they clear it all up for me. 

Thanks all of you guys for your kind participation .

Dandee.


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## Istriano

eidy, twenny (or twunny)
see here: 
http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2011/11/twunny.html
http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2011/11/winter-and-winner.html


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## ptak30

Billbasque said:


> Taken from an article in the Wikipedia:
> 
> "When /t/ follows /n/ and precedes an unstressed vowel, as in _winter_, the /t/ is pronounced by some speakers of American English as a nasalized flap that is identical to the /n/ flap and hence becomes essentially silent, so that for example /nt/ is indistinguishable from /n/ in _winter_ / _winner_"
> 
> That really hit me for the first time when I heard someone pronounce the name "Martin" in a movie, and it sounded pretty much like "Mar-in" to me.



The dropping of the t in Martin is I think the glottal stop. Pronouncing bottle as bo'le  (the glottal stop comes at the ' and replaces the tt) is considered uneducated in this country although it is quite common in the south of this country. Certainly you can pronounce these words incorrectly (in my opinion) if you wish. It may be necessary to show solidarity with your peer group. Relatives of mine who have lived in the US for a large number of years (south and midwest) have acquired US accents but I have not noticed the kind of changes, noted here, with them or the children who were born in the US of A.


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## duvija

Should I stick my nose in this one again? there are many 'hilos' you can read, for exactly this same problem.
Wikipedia's definition is good. I think they are missing the detail that the syllable containing a final nasal, before an unstressed syll. starting with t + vowel, should be itself stressed. 
C*V*n.tV -> C*V*n.V (or CV.nV)

twén - (t)i 
Torón -(t)o
Sacramén-(t)o
ín (t)erest 
Entire (the rule doesn't apply because 'en' is not stressed, and 'ti' is not unstressed)
Intra... ( The rule doesn't apply because the 't' is followed by a consonant)


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## Istriano

*Bottle *has two possible pronunciations in the US English:
1. with a glottal stop
2. with an unreleased t

While the use of the glottal stop may be objected to by some purists, the unreleased t is never under an attack.
The same is true for other words like _mountain_, _button _or _Clinton_.
A full pronunciation of T in these words: as [t] (common in British English) would be considered an acrolectal affectation.


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## Istriano

duvija said:


> Should I stick my nose in this one again? there are many 'hilos' you can read, for exactly this same problem.
> Wikipedia's definition is good. I think they are missing the detail that the syllable containing a final nasal, before an unstressed syll. starting with t + vowel, should be itself stressed.
> C*V*n.tV -> C*V*n.V (or CV.nV)
> 
> twén - (t)i
> Torón -(t)o
> Sacramén-(t)o
> ín (t)erest
> Entire (the rule doesn't apply because 'en' is not stressed, and 'ti' is not unstressed)
> Intra... ( The rule doesn't apply because the 't' is followed by a consonant)



Don't forget the omnipresent Sanna Clause


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## grahamcracker

Take a look at this web site avatar. One character Allison (US) pronounces "eighty" and you cannot hear the "t". Most of the rest of the avatars pronounce it distinctly with the "t".



http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal


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## Istriano

This site is not very good, because most of the times it's syllabic. The word _unpredictable _is recorded as a joint version of  un+pre+dict+able.


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## grahamcracker

Istriano said:


> This site is not very good, because most of the times it's syllabic. The word _unpredictable _is recorded as a joint version of  un+pre+dict+able.


That may very well be. I cannot speak to its quality in Spanish because Spanish is not my first language. And I have not examined many words in English. However, it shows eighty and twenty with and without clear "-ty". It can done both ways. Perhaps, in some places, a person might stand out but they would not be wrong.


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## obz

For me, 20, the second T is silent due to my lazy North American accent. And that is also the correct pronunciation, _here_.
Furthermore, most other multiples of 10, end with a D+y sound.

Twenty= twen-i
Thirty = zer-di
Fourty = for-di
Fifty = _fif -ti_ (for some reason an exception to this D thing in my accent)
Sixty = _six-ti_ (another exception)
Seventy =_ seven-di_
Eighty =_ ai-di_
Ninety =_ nain-di_

Clearly I am capable of pronouncing the T in anyone of them when I need to clean up my accent a bit, minus 20 (still capable, but I normally do not under most circumstances). For some reason the second T sounds horrible. I always notice when speaking with English speakers from the Caribbean for example, how _over_-pronounced it sounds to me.


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## grahamcracker

obz said:


> For me, 20, the second T is silent due to my lazy North American accent. And that is also the correct pronunciation, _here_.
> Furthermore, most other multiples of 10, end with a D+y sound.


If you will notice, the "t" sound is dropped or changed most often when it follows the "n" in the other syllable. That is probably due to some mouth/teeth/tongue/palate articulation mechanics that linguists can explain. We just know that in rapid speech, we tend to leave the "t" out in some situations.


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## duvija

grahamcracker said:


> Take a look at this web site avatar. One character Allison (US) pronounces "eighty" and you cannot hear the "t". Most of the rest of the avatars pronounce it distinctly with the "t".
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal



This is a particularly bad one. One of the mayor problems with many web pages for pronunciation, is that they make people say the words in isolation. It's pure bull, cuz we don't speak in single words. Once you have a word within a sentence [sénens?], you also have to deal with rate of speech. Of course you pronounce 'more' when you speak slowly and carefully. The problem is that normal speech tends to be fast, and then you swallow half of the sounds.


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## grahamcracker

duvija said:


> This is a particularly bad one. One of the mayor problems with many web pages for pronunciation, is that they make people say the words in isolation. It's pure bull, cuz we don't speak in single words. Once you have a word within a sentence [sénens?], you also have to deal with rate of speech. Of course you pronounce 'more' when you speak slowly and carefully. The problem is that normal speech tends to be fast, and then you swallow half of the sounds.


Wouldn't that be the same with any and every automated pronunciation guide?


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## duvija

grahamcracker said:


> Wouldn't that be the same with any and every automated pronunciation guide?




No, (in linguistics they would laugh at you if you test a word said in isolation) the good ones make you read aloud a whole sentence, and then digitally chop of what's not necessary. And you're still dealing with the difference between reading vs. speaking normally. You have to be very careful if you want good results.

(Needless to say, some pages go as far as taping long radio talk shows, and patiently wait till they get the combinations you need. And yes, you may grow a long beard in the meantime, but it's worth it - for work in phonetics).


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## duvija

obz said:


> For me, 20, the second T is silent due to my lazy North American accent. And that is also the correct pronunciation, _here_.
> Furthermore, most other multiples of 10, end with a D+y sound.
> 
> Twenty= twen-i
> Thirty = zer-di
> Fourty = for-di
> Fifty = _fif -ti_ (for some reason an exception to this D thing in my accent)
> Sixty = _six-ti_ (another exception)
> Seventy =_ seven-di_
> Eighty =_ ai-di_
> Ninety =_ nain-di_
> 
> Clearly I am capable of pronouncing the T in anyone of them when I need to clean up my accent a bit, minus 20 (still capable, but I normally do not under most circumstances). For some reason the second T sounds horrible. I always notice when speaking with English speakers from the Caribbean for example, how _over_-pronounced it sounds to me.



Perfect!!!! Check your examples above. If the consonant preceding the 't' is voiced, you get a [d]. In fifty/sixty the preceding consonants are voiceless, so no surprisingly you don't get the [d] sound. (Nasals are voiced, even if no technically so, and in 'eighty' the preceding sound is basically a vowel, and therefore voiced.


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## grahamcracker

duvija,
I have a friend who is from Venezuela and she asked me about the English word "quarter" (as in the coin). Her husband is Mexican and has been in the US for 25 years and she has been here only two.

His version of "quarter", she says, comes out "kwada" (the a vowel is normal Spanish). She is taking English classes and is trying to distinguish between his pronunciation and the English standard. I explained that even native born Americans seldom pronounce a distinct "t". While "CWAR -tr" is supposedly correct, in practice it isn't pronounced that way. In the end I referred her to this web site and the "dictionary.com" speaker icon.

It reminded me how seldom American standard is seldom dictionary standard.


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## duvija

grahamcracker said:


> duvija,
> I have a friend who is from Venezuela and she asked me about the English word "quarter" (as in the coin). Her husband is Mexican and has been in the US for 25 years and she has been here only two.
> 
> His version of "quarter", she says, comes out "kwada" (the a vowel is normal Spanish). She is taking English classes and is trying to distinguish between his pronunciation and the English standard. I explained that even native born Americans seldom pronounce a distinct "t". While "CWAR -tr" is supposedly correct, in practice it isn't pronounced that way. In the end I referred her to this web site and the "dictionary.com" speaker icon.
> 
> It reminded me how seldom American standard is seldom dictionary standard.



And you're right. Many times a preceding 'r' acts the same as a nasal. In theory, also the 'l' should do it, because those are the 'good' syllable-final consonants. Only the 's' doesn't trigger t-deletion.


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## obz

duvija said:


> Perfect!!!! Check your examples above.



Pues gracias duvija, o abuelíta cabreada, pero no me tengo que fijar en ellos, he puesto los ejemplos para ayudar a los demás. Si me hicieran lío, o tuviese dudas, consultaría al foro del inglés.
Sé bien porque suenan así.


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## duvija

obz said:


> Pues gracias duvija, o abuelíta cabreada, pero no me tengo que fijar en ellos, he puesto los ejemplos para ayudar a los demás. Si me hicieran lío, o tuviese dudas, consultaría al foro del inglés.
> Sé bien porque suenan así.



Sorry, when it comes to Phonology, I get kinda excited...


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## flyingcabbage

Since the threads have been merged... Earlier I said that twenty is always "twenty" (not "twenny") in Ireland and the UK; eighty is different.

When speaking quickly, the *"t*" in_ eighty _gets lost along the way, it's softened to a non-plosive */d/* sound or even something that's halfway between a "*t"* and an "*sh*". 
Pronouncing the "*t*" in _eighty_ the same way as the second *"t"* in _twenty_ would sound strange: over-pronounced, posh or formal in colloquial conversation.

All languages lose letters or entire syllables in quick spoken language - my Spanish friends often say "_para_" as "_pa_" etc.


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## luo.mai

Moreau416 said:


> When English speakers in the US are talking fast, or to friends or people they know well, they will use "tweni" instead of "twenti." It isn't necessarily _incorrect_, but *if someone were to use it at a job interview or talking to an adult, it would sound as if the person were being disrespectful or they were uneducated*. I would keep it safe and stick with "twenti"



I disagree. "Tweni", "tweni-one", etc. are standard American pronunciation. Unless we have some particular reason for enunciating the number more clearly than normal, "twenti" will likely sound affected (or indicative of a foreign accent).


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## Billbasque

luo.mai said:


> I disagree. "Tweni", "tweni-one", etc. are standard American pronunciation. Unless we have some particular reason for enunciating the number more clearly than normal, "twenti" will likely sound affected (or indicative of a foreign accent).


That's gotta be the case, because I hear "twen-i" all the time when I listen to Americans talking in TV shows/movies, regardless of their socioeconomic background, and even in situations that would be considered of the utmost solemnity.

That is completely different in my opinion from the other example mentioned above (pa' instead of "para" in spoken Spanish). _That_ is an example of something that would normally be considered colloquial/uneducated, and which you should avoid when you do a job interview, etc... While some Spaniards use it pretty often, many more don't (myself included) regardless of the speed we talk, so it can't be considered part of our collective accent, unlike that "t" in North American English.


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## Istriano

duvija said:


> Perfect!!!! Check your examples above. If the consonant preceding the 't' is voiced, you get a [d]. In fifty/sixty the preceding consonants are voiceless, so no surprisingly you don't get the [d] sound. (Nasals are voiced, even if no technically so, and in 'eighty' the preceding sound is basically a vowel, and therefore voiced.



Duvija please help!
I don't know why so many Americans say this pronunciation (putting = pudding) is exactly the same as the Spanish intervocalic r (as in _amo*r*oso_).
I can clearly hear the difference between the two, and to my ears this ''changed'' t sounds like a Spanish d (think d at the begging of a phrase, as in _*d*iente_), and is not like the Spanish intervocalic r!
I heard a weather girl on CNN español pronounce Oklahoma City with a Spanish r (of _amoroso_, and not of _ratón_) and it sounded so unAmerican, so I think she should have pronounced it with a strong D instead (*d*iente, and not ama*d*o). So, I don't really think American tap t is pronounced as an alveolar r! In languages which have both sounds (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese), tap t sound more like a d than like an alveolar r!


To Brazilian ears, American pronunciation of beautiful sounds _biudif-l a_nd not _biurif-l _(we have both sounds [d] and alveolar r in intervocalic positions in Brazilian Portuguese).
We have minimal pairs like _fado _(Portuguese folk song) ~ _faro _(instinct) in Brazilian Portuguese. I don't think there is such phonological contrast in US English or Spanish, so people may mix the two sounds.


I asked a friend from Scotland: how do you hear American pronunciation of Betty: like Berry or Beddie? And she said: like Beddie. In Scotland they pronounce _berry _with an alveolar r, so it's obvious that she identified the right sound! In American English, there is no phonological contrast between [d] and [ɾ], this is true, but we should be more careful and not consider this sound an alveolar r (because we who have this sound do hear it's closer to a [d] than to a [ɾ]).

Interesting find (on pronunciation of *faculty *and about OED which uses [d] for a flap t in US English):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Intervocalic_alveolar_flapping#Flapping_after_.2Fl.2F


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## luo.mai

Istriano said:


> Duvija please help!
> I don't know why so many Americans say this pronunciation (putting = pudding) is exactly the same as the Spanish intervocalic r (as in _amo*r*oso_).



Istriano, you are quite right that the American flap t is not the same as Spanish r, and personally I would not encourage the comparison.

In truth, the American flap t has no Spanish equivalent. It's close to an American d, not so close to Spanish d as in "diente".

Rather than trying to map American (or any) English sounds onto Spanish "equivalents", it's better to listen closely and imitate the sounds that native speakers make. In so many cases, thick foreign accents persist because we share the same alphabet, and people carry their pronunciations of the letters from one language to the next.

 N.B. You can search for a word and hear a native speaker pronounce it at http://www.forvo.com


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## grahamcracker

luo.mai said:


> Rather than trying to map American (or any) English sounds onto Spanish "equivalents", it's better to listen closely and imitate the sounds that native speakers make. In so many cases, thick foreign accents persist because we share the same alphabet, and people carry their pronunciations of the letters from one language to the next.
> 
> N.B. You can search for a word and hear a native speaker pronounce it at http://www.forvo.com


I think it is muscle memory. We have trained our muscles according to one language and certain sound combinations don't work out so well. I remember trying to tap an "r" and still have enough tongue dexterity to quickly move my tongue for the "L" position in the name "Carlos". I know what I want to say but my tongue won't do it.

Of course, I never stopped to check and see if native Spanish speakers had any difficulty.


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## duvija

*Uf, this message became too long. Sorry. I can't explain it in fewer words.

You are all right, but you're didn't mention 'speed'. The big difference between t/d/r for Spanish speakers, is the lenghth of that consonant. In English, it's much shorter than in any variety of Spanish. That's why it's called a 'tap' in English. Same with 'r'. For many Eng. speakers, t/d/r are almost the same, but the tongue taps in slightly different parts of the alveolar ridge, or even palate. Non-native speakers can't see where the tongue goes when we speak with someone else. (It would be nice to force Eng. speakers to have transparent cheeks, but they seem to refuse to act on this simple idea) And then there are vowels, which I'm trying to forget right now (ex: Mary/merry/marry, etc.)

The two big theories ' articulary  and auditory ', always fight about this issue. Do we try to imitate the position of the organs of the native speaker of Eng. talking to us, or we try to make it 'sound' the same? (possibly using our tongue, ridge, lips, uvula, palate in different places? I mean, in (yes!) a spectrogram, you can get the exact same result from different positions of our speech organs).

In some teaching systems, they sit you in front of a spectrograph, you listen to the word and see the graphic, and then you have to repeat it over and over, till you get the same little drawing. It can be accomplished with different "gestures" (ok, 'gestures' are what I said before: the spacial positions of the articulatory organs). So the 'articulatory theory' seems to be DOA.

Other systems want you to get close, but no cigar. Some Sp.students are simply taught to say 'chime' when they want to say 'time'. The Eng. [t] in stressed syllable is aspirated (a big puff of air comes out from the mouth). We can't do aspiration, so a 'ch' may be closer than our simple [t] . The idea is that a native Eng. speaker will hear ' what chime is it?' and understand that that's our trial to produce the aspirated 't', easier than when we pronounce a plain 't'. (yes, it sounds really funny).

If that wouldn't be enough, Spanish is a weird language (in some books, it says 'in our world, Spanish t/d shouldn't exist'). Our t/d are too similar, compared to any other languages in the world. The 'distance' should be larger, but it isn't. It's almost impossible to learn, without total immersion (for my taste, the only way to really learn a language, in spite of classes, or teaching theories. And not even this...).

And then you get to a big knot. Whoever misspronounces a sound, that mistake comes from perception or production? I worked on this a lot (many years, really), without a firm answer. Many people will say 'oh, of course, it's 'xx' - without any real experiment that can prove it. Trust me, it's not easy.
All the experiments I did/read/studied/follow are not conclusive. (many, many, abour r/l in Chinese). I still can't swear if we really hear something but can't reproduce it, or we simply cannot hear it, and therefore it slides by.

I believe after over 30 years in the States, I should be able to listen to what is said, but can't reproduce (I still have a crappy accent). Still, this doesn't mean I really know if my problem is perception, or production. I must humbly accept the fact that I can't prove it, one way or another.

Please, tell me what you did or didn't understand from this long message, and we'll try to make it better.


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