# Pronunciation of 'to' and 'two'.



## Ben Jamin

Listening to spoken English I notoced that both native English speakers, and second language speakers use a pronunciation sounding like "tyuu" or "tjyuu". It seems to me that this pronunciation is taking over the ground. 
What is the origin of this pronunciation? What English dialect it comes from? Where is it dominant, and where not used?
Can anyone answer?


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## shawnee

I suppose in some corner of the world someone might sound like that, but I aint erd em; let alone all native English and second language speakers.


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## Dymn

Many Spaniards pronounce "_two_" like "_choo_" (_chu_). Don't know where that comes from.


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## fdb

At least in Britain, "tune" is /tju:n/ and "tube" is /tju:b/, but "to" and "two" are definitely /tu:/, with no palatalisation.


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## Sprache

Practically every Brazilian I've ever met pronounces _two_ as _choo_. Could this be because the sound /u/ in most major English dialects is more fronted than the cardinal /u/ that is found in many other languages, including Portuguese and I suspect Polish? I've always assumed that the more central position of English /u/ sounds different to Brazilian Portuguese speakers from their own back vowel /u/, and in an attempt to say it, they produce something that sounds like /tʃɪʊ/.


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## pollohispanizado

fdb said:


> At least in Britain, "tune" is /tju:n/ and "tube" is /tju:b/, but "to" and "two" are definitely /tu:/, with no palatalisation


Agree. Here, in Canada, word initial /tu/ can be palatized or not, it depends on the word and the speaker (it could be that the palatized pronounciation is viewed as more proper by some). I always say Tuesday /'tu:zdeɪ/, but I have known people (also born in my city) that say /'tʃu:zdeɪ/ (almost never /'tju:zdeɪ/).

_To_ is always /tu/ or, waaay more commonly in informal speech, /tə/; and two is /tu:/ or /tuʊ/, but never /tju/ or /tʃu/.


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## merquiades

pollohispanizado said:


> _To_ is always /tu/ or, waaay more commonly in informal speech, /tə/; and two is /tu:/ or /tuʊ/, but never /tju/ or /tʃu/.


I agree; "to" is mostly /tə/; and "two" is /tu/ in NE America.


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## Ben Jamin

Hello! Listen to this on Forvo: "Two"  Pronunciation by mmdills22 (Female from United States).
There are many recordings with similar pronunciation from American speakers.


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## pollohispanizado

Ben Jamin said:


> Hello! Listen to this on Forvo: "Two"  Pronunciation by mmdills22 (Female from United States).
> There are many recordings with similar pronunciation from American speakers.


She says /tʰuʊ/ with heavy aspiration. The /tʰ/ is very alveolar --almost postalveolar or slightly retroflexed--, but not palatized.


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## Sobakus

That vowel is actually very far from [tʰuʊ]: [uʊ] sounds something like this (Danish). This is the phenomenon known as 'oo-fronting' or 'fronting of the _goose_ vowel' etc. It's typically described for British English (rampant in London) but seems to be at least equally as common in American English, and way more standard. The first vowel is in the environs of [ʉ] (Swedish) and [ɯ] (Japanese), then closing towards an [w].

This phonetic study excerpt finds that this fronting is especially strong after coronal consonants _(t, d, n)._ There's a map on the third page showing areas where it's most extreme in purple. To the non-natives who are unaccustomed to it, the result will sound like either an /iw/ or a /ju/ depending on their native tongue. The natives note this pronunciation using _ew_, as in _kewl = cool._

This coupled with aspiration (even not that heavy) is what makes it sound extremely close to [t͡ɕ] as in Polish _ciu_ and BR-PT _tiu._ This is evidently what's happening with Ben Jamin and all those innumerable Brazilian Portuguese speakers.

I want to stress that the "non-fronted" pronunciation of /uw/ is already miles away from the cardinal _u_ of Italian, Polish or German and starts in a lax and centralised vowel [ʊ]_._


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## Pedro y La Torre

fdb said:


> At least in Britain, "tune" is /tju:n/ and "tube" is /tju:b/, but "to" and "two" are definitely /tu:/, with no palatalisation.


And in Ireland and every other non-North American variety of English that I'm familiar with.


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## Roxxxannne

If I am speaking emphatically, as in "I saw him going *to *the beach, not coming *from* the beach"  or "I asked for *two* shots of tequila, not *one*" I pronounce both words the same way: /tu/.
In "let's go to the beach" and when counting quickly, 'to' and 'two' both become /tə/. 
'Schwa-ized' 'two' and emphatic 'to' are unusual, though.


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## pollohispanizado

Roxxxannne said:


> when counting quickly, 'to' and 'two' both become /tə/.


I've never heard _two_ pronounced /tə/.


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## Roxxxannne

pollohispanizado said:


> I've never heard _two_ pronounced /tə/.


I meant when counting fast: onetuhthreeferfi'sixs'eneighnineten.


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## pollohispanizado

Roxxxannne said:


> I meant when counting fast: onetuhthreeferfi'sixs'eneighnineten.


Yeah, I've still only ever heard: /wən.tu.θɹi.fɔɹ/ regardless of how fast it's said and who says it (maybe it's different where you live).


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## Pedro y La Torre

Roxxxannne said:


> I meant when counting fast: onetuhthreeferfi'sixs'eneighnineten.


Agreed.


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## Ellis91

I think tə might be the phonetic realization in quick speech, even if the speaker thinks they're going for tu. Incidentally, I think a lot of native English speakers tend to underestimate how often they're reducing unstressed vowels to a schwa.


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## bearded

Ellis91 said:


> a lot of native English speakers tend to underestimate how often they're reducing unstressed vowels to a schwa.


How true!   
It's one of the features that make spoken English difficult (at least initially) for us foreigners to understand.


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## Ben Jamin

pollohispanizado said:


> She says /tʰuʊ/ with heavy aspiration. The /tʰ/ is very alveolar --almost postalveolar or slightly retroflexed--, but not palatized.


I did not say that the T has to be palatalized. I wrote bout 2 possible realizations: as "tyuu", very long with a "y" consonant after /t/, and as "tjuu", with a "ch" sound instead of /t/.


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## pollohispanizado

I hear no [j], be it a semivowel, consonant or palatization, and definitely not ch (though Sobakus explained above why a Polish speaker would interpret the sound that way).


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## Forero

Sobakus said:


> This is the phenomenon known as 'oo-fronting' or 'fronting of the _goose_ vowel' etc. It's typically described for British English (rampant in London) but seems to be at least equally as common in American English, and way more standard.


I associate this phenomenon with the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, most common around the Great Lakes.


Sobakus said:


> I want to stress that the "non-fronted" pronunciation of /uw/ is already miles away from the cardinal _u_ of Italian, Polish or German and starts in a lax and centralised vowel [ʊ]_._


Where I live, the "long _oo_" sound is [ʊu̯] except before an unstressed syllable, where it is [u].


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## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> I did not say that the T has to be palatalized. I wrote bout 2 possible realizations: as "tyuu", very long with a "y" consonant after /t/, and as "tjuu", with a "ch" sound instead of /t/.


What you described* is* palatalisation. I agree with what others said before: neither_ to_ nor _two _is ever palatalised. I also agree with @Sobakus that the aspiration of /t/ can be perceived as palatalisation, depending on the native language of the listener.


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## Sobakus

I think @Ben Jamin means that they don't mean that the consonant needs to be palatalised either as a co-articulation [tʰʲ] or as a full-on [t͡ʃ] sound. What they're wondering about is a separate segment /j/ that they hear regardless of how the initial /t/ is articulated. My explanation is that what they hear is _diphthongisation of the vowel + fronting of the first element._ They interpret the fronted first element of it as /j/, and they hear two segments because they expect a single monophthong [uː] or at least a smaller articulation swing between the two parts of the diphthong.


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> What they're wondering about is a separate segment /j/ that they hear regardless of how the initial /t/ is articulated.


Whom do you mean by "they"? I don't quite understand. Who hears /j/?

Everbody (including me) says it is plain /tu/ (British /tu:/) without /j/, without jodation, without palatalisation or anything of the sort.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> Whom do you mean by "they"? I don't quite understand. Who hears /j/?
> 
> Everbody (including me) says it is plain /tu/ (British /tu:/) without /j/, without jodation, without palatalisation or anything of the sort.


Ben Jamin is the singular "they" who hears a /j/ there.


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## berndf

Ah, OK. I still think what he hears is just the aspiration of the /t/. A very forcefully pronounced aspiration can sound a bit like [ç].


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## Forero

The sound Ben Jamin is talking about, e.g. Forvo: "Two"  Pronunciation by mmdills22 (Female from United States), is a diphthong beginning somewhere around [ɪ] and ending somewhere around [u]. Ben Jamin hears it as a rising diphthong (second element more prominent), but it is actually a falling diphthong (first element more prominent). Were it a rising diphthong, the onglide would be interpreted in English as a /j/, but since it is a falling diphthong, we English speakers recognize the diphthong as a variety of "long _oo_". In my particular dialect, "long _oo_", when not realized as a simple [u], begins near [ʊ], not [ɪ], but I hear the other variety a lot on the radio and from my Michigan relatives.


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## Sobakus

Thank yuo Forero, that's what I was pointing out when I said:


Sobakus said:


> To the non-natives who are unaccustomed to it, the result will sound like either an /iw/ or a /ju/ depending on their native tongue. The natives note this pronunciation using _ew_, as in _kewl = cool._


Since in Polish and Portuguese there are only rising high+high vowel diphthongs, they naturally hear this as rising. Early Modern English similarly merged /ew~iw/, /ju:/ and /u:/, prototypically into /juw/ but the outcomes differ not just by region but even by word (cf. _Toosday, nooclear, due = do_ etc). Though seeing as the latter phenomenon appears to be restricted to the coronals also (t, d, n), it could be secondary to and resulting from the fronting that we're discussing.


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## Ben Jamin

1. It seems that this kind of pronunciation is not frequent in British English, at least in accents similar to RP.
2. I have been used to British pronunciation of Tuesday as /tjusdɘj/, and New Yorkish "toosday" (/tusdɘj/)
3. The pronunciation is often copied by non natives, who realize the 'two/to' word with a clear palatalization of the 't'.
4. The pronunciation of 't' in Tuesday is palatal in many native English accents, and the speakers use the same pronunciation for two as the beginning of Tuesday.


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## Ben Jamin

Sobakus said:


> Thank yuo Forero, that's what I was pointing out when I said:
> 
> Since in Polish and Portuguese there are only rising high+high vowel diphthongs, they naturally hear this as rising. Early Modern English similarly merged /ew~iw/, /ju:/ and /u:/, prototypically into /juw/ but the outcomes differ not just by region but even by word (cf. _Toosday, nooclear, due = do_ etc). Though seeing as the latter phenomenon appears to be restricted to the coronals also (t, d, n), it could be secondary to and resulting from the fronting that we're discussing.


So, it is correct that in American accents there is a diphtong after 't'?


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## Forero

Ben Jamin said:


> So, it is correct that in American accents there is a dipht*h*ong after 't'?


That depends on the context. In particular, it depends on how fast the person is talking, whether the vowel in question is stressed, and whether the next syllable is stressed.

It also depends on what the vowel phoneme is, but I assume you are still asking about the vowel of "two", "food", and "soon", which I know by the traditional name "long double _o_".

When "long double _o_" is a diphthong, the first element predominates, and exactly what that first element is varies from place to place within the U. S. and may also depend on the age and sex of the speaker, among other things.


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## Ben Jamin

Forero said:


> That depends on the context. In particular, it depends on how fast the person is talking, whether the vowel in question is stressed, and whether the next syllable is stressed.
> 
> It also depends on what the vowel phoneme is, but I assume you are still asking about the vowel of "two", "food", and "soon", which I know by the traditional name "long double _o_".
> 
> When "long double _o_" is a diphthong, the first element predominates, and exactly what that first element is varies from place to place within the U. S. and may also depend on the age and sex of the speaker, among other things.


Thank you! This was the answer that at least partly corroborates my observations.


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## Sobakus

Ben Jamin said:


> So, it is correct that in American accents there is a diphtong after 't'?


Without a doubt, the _goose/who_ vowel is not a monophthong in any typical English accent, but the degree of fronting of the first element varies. Contrast Hungarian and Icelandic; Faroese has a very fronted diphthong, but unlike English the first element is peripheral/tense. The fronting is found in some of the more trendy accents in both the US and Britain, though; and I don't share your impression that many non-natives confuse _two_ and _tue-_. As others mentioned, this is primarily a peculiarity of Brasilian Portguese speakers.


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