# pretty - (pronunciation)



## kaiser998

Hello, I have a doubt, today I was corrected *be*cause I pronounced pretty as "pridi" trying to say "bonito" in *S*panish, the guy who corrected me said that the pronunciation is "predi" I was looking for the pronunciation on the Internet but I found "pridi" as its pronunciation, but I still have the doubt, could you help me?


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## Agró

Collins, Oxford: pretty [ˈpr*ɪt*ɪ] (BrE)

Supongo que en AmE hacen otra cosa. La 't' intervocálica se parece algo a una 'd' o a una 'r'. En cuanto a la primera vocal, no sé qué decirte. He oído pronunciaciones como la que te dio ese 'guy', pero de ahí a corregirte...


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## Rodal

La pronunciacion en español de "pretty" es (priti) con "t" lo que pasa que en inglés americano la "t" tiene un sonido mas suave y hablando rápido pareciera que estuviera diciendo "d" o "r" pero no lo es.  Para que logres la pronunciacion correcta, practica decir "pretty" con una "t" suave.  Ahora, el inglés británico tiene una pronunciación más fuerte de la "t". Por lo tanto, si no puedes lograr la "t" suave, es mejor que la pronuncies en inglés británico ya que tienes mejores probabilidades de ser comprendido bien si la pronuncias con "t" y no con "d".


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## kaiser998

Rodal said:


> La pronunciacion en español de "pretty" es (priti) con "t" lo que pasa que en inglés americano la "t" tiene un sonido mas suave y hablando rápido pareciera que estuviera diciendo "d" o "r" pero no lo es.  Para que logres la pronunciacion correcta, practica decir "pretty" con una "t" suave.  Ahora, el inglés británico tiene una pronunciación más fuerte de la "t". Por lo tanto, si no puedes lograr la "t" suave, es mejor que la pronuncies en inglés británico ya que tienes mejores probabilidades de ser comprendido bien si la pronuncias con "t" y no con "d".


Lo de la doble T Pre"tt"y lo tengo muy claro, sólo que no sabía como escribirlo, pero quiero saber exactamente la pronunciación de la vocal "E" él dice que se pronuncia PRETI cuándo se quiere decir bonito y PRITI cuando se quiere decir bastante, pero he buscado en cielo y tierra y todos dicen PRITI!


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## kaiser998

Agró said:


> Collins, Oxford: pretty [ˈpr*ɪt*ɪ] (BrE)
> 
> Supongo que en AmE hacen otra cosa. La 't' intervocálica se parece algo a una 'd' o a una 'r'. En cuanto a la primera vocal, no sé qué decirte. He oído pronunciaciones como la que te dio ese 'guy', pero de ahí a corregirte...


Lo de la doble T Pre"tt"y lo tengo muy claro, sólo que no sabía como escribirlo, pero quiero saber exactamente la pronunciación de la vocal "E" él dice que se pronuncia PRETI cuándo se quiere decir bonito y PRITI cuando se quiere decir bastante, pero he buscado en cielo y tierra y todos dicen PRITI!


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## Rodal

Buena pregunta. La pronunciación de pretty (abundante) y pretty (bonito/a) es igual.


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## onbalance

Cómo pronunciar la palabra "pretty" en el inglés americano:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pretty


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## kaiser998

onbalance said:


> Cómo pronunciar la palabra "pretty" en el inglés americano:
> 
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pretty


Muchas gracias por el link.


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## Cenzontle

La "e" de "pretty" es excepcional: la palabra siempre rima con "city", sea en "pretty good" o en "pretty picture".  No rima con "Betty" ni "spaghetti".
Al decir que la "tt" (cuando es afectada por el "flapping" americano) se pronuncia como una "d" o una "r",
hay que especificar que esa "d" es la del inglés, y que la "r" es la del español (como en "Y*r*igoyen").

One more word of caution:
If you're going to use your Spanish "r" for the "tt" of "pretty",
you cannot use it also for the "r" of "p*r*etty"—
don't try to do "flapping" until you've mastered the American English "r".


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## kaiser998

Cenzontle said:


> La "e" de "pretty" es excepcional: la palabra siempre rima con "city", sea en "pretty good" o en "pretty picture".  No rima con "Betty" ni "spaghetti".
> Al decir que la "tt" (cuando es afectada por el "flapping" americano) se pronuncia como una "d" o una "r",
> hay que especificar que esa "d" es la del inglés, y que la "r" es la del español (como en "Y*r*igoyen").


Muchas gracias, sí, mi compañero estaba en un error, gracias a todos.


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## duvija

Para la pronunciación de la vocal, poné la boca como para una _ pero tratá de decir [e]. También podés probarlo al revés._


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## FromPA

kaiser998 said:


> Hello, I have a doubt, today I was corrected *be*cause I pronounced pretty as "pridi" trying to say "bonito" in *S*panish, the guy who corrected me said that the pronunciation is "predi" I was looking for the pronunciation on the Internet but I found "pridi" as its pronunciation, but I still have the doubt, could you help me?


I pronounce it "pridi."


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## duvija

FromPA said:


> I pronounce it "pridi."


No, te aseguro que no. . Tu primera 'i' está entre la [e] y la _ del español. (Parate frente a un espejo y mirate. Vas a ver como para la segunda 'y' ponés la boca apenas diferente que para la primera. La segunda es más , aunque pueden ser bastante parecidas las dos.)_


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## FromPA

duvija said:


> No, te aseguro que no. . Tu primera 'i' está entre la [e] y la _ del español. (Parate frente a un espejo y mirate. Vas a ver como para la segunda 'y' ponés la boca apenas diferente que para la primera. La segunda es más , aunque pueden ser bastante parecidas las dos.)_


Well, I should clarify that I assumed "pridi" as it would be pronounced in English, not Spanish, the first syllable being pronounced with a short i like the word "grid" or "it" and the final i as a long e.  Sorry for the confusion.


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## BryanCr7Know

Se pronunciaría como una R de español, PreRy, que yo sepa esas palabras con dos T o algo así se pronuncian como la R de español. (Aunque hay algunos que pronuncian "pretty", así igual como una T)


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## duvija

FromPA said:


> Well, I should clarify that I assumed "pridi" as it would be pronounced in English, not Spanish, the first syllable being pronounced with a short i like the word "grid" or "it" and the final i as a long e.  Sorry for the confusion.



Uh, OK, I was talking about the phonetic sound _ vs . 
In the first post from kaiser, someone had told him to pronounce it 'PREDI' instead of 'priti', so I went for the vowels ... and everybody else attacked the innocent consonant..._


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## BryanCr7Know

Ni "Predi" ni "Priti"


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## duvija

BryanCr7Know said:


> Ni "Predi" ni "Priti"



En español, 'predi' se acerca más a ese sonido de la primera 'i' suponiendo que pronunciemos la [r ] retroflexa del inglés (as much as we can).


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## kaiser998

duvija said:


> En español, 'predi' se acerca más a ese sonido de la primera 'i' suponiendo que pronunciemos la [r ] retroflexa del inglés (as much as we can).


Entonces, la primer Vocal suena como E o como I?


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## jilar

kaiser, yo de ti escuchaba la canción de Roy Orbison (de EEUU), titulada Pretty Woman.
Y según tú escuches intenta imitar.

Para mí, teniendo en cuenta que en español diferenciamos cinco vocales, a, e, i, o, u. Si tengo que imitar el sonido "oficial (lo que enseñarían en Oxford  )" de la palabra inglesa _pretty_ diré
PRITI
De hecho, en su día así me lo corrigieron, pues yo decía PRETI (guiándome por su escritura), aunque quien lo hizo era alemán.

El tema del sonido de esas dos Tes, ya es otro dilema. Si afinas el oído, al Orbison no le escuchas una T como la podemos decir en español, hace algo parecido a una D o incluso podrías interpretarlo como una R suave. Vamos, como si arrastrara o le costara mucho decir una T exacta (si la palabra lleva dos T será por algo ¿no?)

También, si buscas "pretty pronunciation" hay un vídeo en Youtube, usuario Pronunciation Book, ojo que seguimos según el habla de EEUU.
A mi parecer, en estos vídeos sería muy interesante que mostraran la vocalización, ver la boca a la persona que habla. Puede dar pistas de cómo conseguir un sonido.

Tienes que tener en cuenta que entre el español y el inglés ninguna vocal coincide con exactitud. Las más parecidas, a nivel sonoro, serían nuestra A y la U inglesa en palabras como pub, cup, but, butter, ...
Échale un ojo a https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonología_del_inglés y fíjate en el cuadro de Formantes comparados
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...px-Comparison-English-Spanish_Bradlow1995.png

Ahí ves que para la E española, el sonido más cercano en inglés sería el signo I (como una i mayúscula pero en pequeño) que es el signo que puedes ver en cualquier diccionario al representar el sonido de cada palabra.
Visto así en el gráfico, parece que debería sonar más como nuestra E, pero estamos viendo que muchos dicen que suena I. El gráfico de los formantes despeja eso, ya que es un sonido que está entre nuestra E y nuestra I. No es ninguna de esas duras pura, sino una cosa intermedia (quizá el oído de unos oye más una E y el oído de otros oye más una I)

Suerte


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## Peterdg

Go to this site, enter the word "pretty", select different speakers and listen.


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## neal41

BryanCr7Know said:


> Se pronunciaría como una R de español, PreRy, que yo sepa esas palabras con dos T o algo así se pronuncian como la R de español. (Aunque hay algunos que pronuncian "pretty", así igual como una T)


This is the right answer.  The fact that 'pretty' is spelled with two t's is irrelevant.  The /t/ phonene between vowels where the second vowel is not accented or stressed is an alveolar tap or flap, essentially identical to the single 'r' in Spanish.  If the second vowel has even a secondary stress, then the /t/ phoneme is an unvoiced dental stop like a word initial /t/.  An example is 'Frito', a brand name for a corn-based chip that you eat.  The last /o/ has secondary stress, and the 't' is a stop.  The above is intended to apply only to American English.  I don't know about British English.


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## kaiser998

neal41 said:


> This is the right answer.  The fact that 'pretty' is spelled with two t's is irrelevant.  The /t/ phonene between vowels where the second vowel is not accented or stressed is an alveolar tap or flap, essentially identical to the single 'r' in Spanish.  If the second vowel has even a secondary stress, then the /t/ phoneme is an unvoiced dental stop like a word initial /t/.  An example is 'Frito', a brand name for a corn-based chip that you eat.  The last /o/ has secondary stress, and the 't' is a stop.  The above is intended to apply only to American English.  I don't know about British English.


Neal41 my questions is not about the double T - "tt"  my questions is about the first vowel Pr-e-tty and how to pronounce it, "priti" or "preti".


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## Wandering JJ

kaiser998 said:


> Neal41 my questions is not about the double T - "tt"  my questions is about the first vowel Pr-e-tty and how to pronounce it, "priti" or "preti".


You are being unreasonable in not showing gratitude towards the comments made by neal41.

You pronounce the first and second vowels in _pretty_ in an identical manner.
Unfortunately for you, Spanish is poor in vowel sounds and phonemes in general. There is *no Spanish equivalent* to the i-sound that occurs twice in the word _pretty._
If you cannot tell the difference between the English word pairs _seek/sick; seat/sit; teat/tit; beat/bit; feet/fit_ etc., then there is no point in asking the question.
The i-sound is *nothing like* the 'i' in Spanish _bonito_. If you spoke one of the Slavic languages, I could give you some comparisons, since they have two i-sounds that Spanish would represent as 'i'.
I agree with the comments about the pronunciation of 't' in the word _pretty_. In standard British English, it is pronounced /t/ – not quite the same as the Spanish 't'; but I doubt you'd spot the difference.  Pronunciation in AmE is as described by neil41. I know as I am often in the USA and have linguistically-minded family and friends there.


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## mexerica feliz

In US English:   [ 'prɪt̬i ]

t̬ -  flap T   (according to articulatory phoneticians like J.C. Wells);

not to be confused with Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/Japanese [ɾ]!

The tongue position is completely different in the English flap T and the Spanish single r [ɾ],
substituting one for another will be heard as ''foreign accent''.

The Spanish single r  [ɾ] is a vibrant, it has one single vibration.

(North) American flap T [ t̬  ]  is not a vibrant, it has no vibration,
it's pronounced as a fast _d_.

To give you more detail:

[ɾ] in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese is an apical vibrant.

American tap/voiced T is a laminal consonant, with a larger portion of the
tongue involved in the production of the sound, although the contact may be more incomplete. There is never any vibration at all.


That is why OED uses [d] for the flap T in English (this will sound better than using
[ɾ] in English): http://i51.tinypic.com/27ysuiq.jpg

In fact, it's a sound halfway between Italian [d] and Italian [ɾ] in words like
_moderato_, but closer to a d.

Not many Spaniards and Americans would hear Italian _moderato_ (as spoken by an Italian)
as _morerato _or _modedato_.

Italian and Brazilian Portuguese have [d] ~ [ɾ] phonological contrast (even intervocalically),
American tap t sounds much closer to our [d] than to the vibrant ɾ.


''We could use [d] for a tap/flap T in words like _bitter, thirty, writing…_
since ”the important thing is surely its voicing, not its precise manner of articulation”.
(J. C. Wells)

John Christopher Wells in ”Accents of English: An introduction”
(3.3.4 Tapping and T Voicing)
says

” …the medial consonant in GenAm _*atom *_is a tap, and not a flap.
It remains true, however, that it is not identical with the [ɾ] allophone of Spanish /ɾ/, which has a somewhat different configuration of the front of the tongue (see X-ray tracings in Monnot & Freeman 1972).”


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## neal41

mexerica feliz said:


> ” …the medial consonant in GenAm _*atom *_is a tap, and not a flap.
> It remains true, however, that it is not identical with the [ɾ] allophone of Spanish /ɾ/, which has a somewhat different configuration of the front of the tongue (see X-ray tracings in Monnot & Freeman 1972).”



Kaiser998 really wanted to know about the first vowel, not the intervocalic consonant, in 'pretty', but a lot of respondents were confused, and I was among them.  As to intervocalic /t/ and /d/ the following long article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_flap

deals with the alveolar tap or alveolar flap, represented in the IPA by the fishhook "r" ([ɾ]).  The article contains a long table of examples from many languages.  The example from Spanish is "caro" (expensive) and the example from English is "better".

When phoneticians make careful measurements of speech sounds with instruments, they can identify lots of variation.  "Mary from Colorado aspirates her initial unvoiced stops rather more than Jane from Minnesota", etc., etc.


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## duvija

neal41 said:


> Kaiser998 really wanted to know about the first vowel, not the intervocalic consonant, in 'pretty', but a lot of respondents were confused, and I was among them.  As to intervocalic /t/ and /d/ the following long article
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_flap
> 
> deals with the alveolar tap or alveolar flap, represented in the IPA by the fishhook "r" ([ɾ]).  The article contains a long table of examples from many languages.  The example from Spanish is "caro" (expensive) and the example from English is "better".
> 
> When phoneticians make careful measurements of speech sounds with instruments, they can identify lots of variation.  "Mary from Colorado aspirates her initial unvoiced stops rather more than Jane from Minnesota", etc., etc.



Thank you thank you thank you...  (#16/#18). And be glad I didn't recommend any spectrograms (it's hard to find one that's done and on the web. Of course, I can do it myself, but my pronunciation is pure crap. I'm still trying to figure out how I could have the computer speak while Praat analyzes the input).


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## kaiser998

Y


Wandering JJ said:


> You are being unreasonable in not showing gratitude towards the comments made by neal41.
> 
> You pronounce the first and second vowels in _pretty_ in an identical manner.
> Unfortunately for you, Spanish is poor in vowel sounds and phonemes in general. There is *no Spanish equivalent* to the i-sound that occurs twice in the word _pretty._
> If you cannot tell the difference between the English word pairs _seek/sick; seat/sit; teat/tit; beat/bit; feet/fit_ etc., then there is no point in asking the question.
> The i-sound is *nothing like* the 'i' in Spanish _bonito_. If you spoke one of the Slavic languages, I could give you some comparisons, since they have two i-sounds that Spanish would represent as 'i'.
> I agree with the comments about the pronunciation of 't' in the word _pretty_. In standard British English, it is pronounced /t/ – not quite the same as the Spanish 't'; but I doubt you'd spot the difference.  Pronunciation in AmE is as described by neil41. I know as I am often in the USA and have linguistically-minded family and friends there.


Yeah you're right, I'm so sorry, I didn't know what happened, thanks so much to you (both).


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## kaiser998

Wandering JJ said:


> You are being unreasonable in not showing gratitude towards the comments made by neal41.
> 
> You pronounce the first and second vowels in _pretty_ in an identical manner.
> Unfortunately for you, Spanish is poor in vowel sounds and phonemes in general. There is *no Spanish equivalent* to the i-sound that occurs twice in the word _pretty._
> If you cannot tell the difference between the English word pairs _seek/sick; seat/sit; teat/tit; beat/bit; feet/fit_ etc., then there is no point in asking the question.
> The i-sound is *nothing like* the 'i' in Spanish _bonito_. If you spoke one of the Slavic languages, I could give you some comparisons, since they have two i-sounds that Spanish would represent as 'i'.
> I agree with the comments about the pronunciation of 't' in the word _pretty_. In standard British English, it is pronounced /t/ – not quite the same as the Spanish 't'; but I doubt you'd spot the difference.  Pronunciation in AmE is as described by neil41. I know as I am often in the USA and have linguistically-minded family and friends there.


Yeah, you're completely right, there are no vowels in english with the same sound than Spanish, I got your explanantion about pair words "seek/sick" etc, there's a different between them, the sound 'i:' is pretty different from 'I', Thanks again.


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## Wandering JJ

kaiser998 said:


> Yeah, you're completely right, there are no vowels in english with the same sound than Spanish, I got your explanantion about pair words "seek/sick" etc, there's a different between them, the sound 'i:' is pretty different from 'I', Thanks again.


Thanks for your replies. Just to confirm, both the vowels in 'pretty' are pronounced /ɪ/ and not /i/ – certainly in BrE and probably in AmE as well, although the first one may be lengthened in some U.S. dialects.


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## duvija

Wandering JJ said:


> Thanks for your replies. Just to confirm, both the vowels in 'pretty' are pronounced /ɪ/ and not /i/ – certainly in BrE and probably in AmE as well, although the first one may be lengthened in some U.S. dialects.



Just to make sure: the vowels are NOT the same. Being Eng. a stress-timed language (as opposed to a syllable-timed language like Spanish), the stressed vowel is never the same as the unstressed. Close in quality, quite different in quantity, loudness, etc...


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## jilar

La verdad es que es difícil llegar a un acuerdo. Veamos unos ejemplos:
Pretty (escrito siempre igual ... aún menos mal  )
Según Wordreference (tenemos varios audios (US, UK, SCOT), pero un solo código escrito) /'prItI/

Collins:
Británico /'prItI/
Americano /'prIti/

Oxford:
Reino Unido /'prIti/
Americano /ˈpridē/

Ahí arriba han enlazado al Merrian-Webster e indicado que sería americano, donde se ve:
\ˈpri-tē, ˈpər- _also_ ˈpru̇-\

Menos mal que no aparece Australia y otras regiones.
Por cierto, cuando en los diccionarios indican US tengo claro que se refiere a EEUU; pero cuando dicen "American" ¿incluyen a Canadá? ¿o usan "American" como sinónimo de estadounidense?

En España eso se pronuncia como leería un español "priti" o como lo prefieras escribir, pryty, prity, pryti.
Y sería raro que no te entendiera cualquier angloparlante sobre todo si dices una frase completa. A lo mejor diciendo la palabra suelta, sin más, puedes verte en situaciones que alguien no te entienda, porque él lo diría algo diferente, obvio.


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## Forero

The first vowel in _pretty_, contrary to what the spelling indicates, is the vowel of _bitter_, not the vowel of _better_.  It does not correspond to any Spanish vowel.

The _t_ sound in _pretty_ is, for me, a partially voiced or unvoiced tap (in the sense that mexerica feliz uses the word _tap_). Except when speaking very quickly, I normally distinguish the tap in _latter_, which is not fully voiced, from the tap in _ladder_, which is.

The final vowel of _pretty_ is Spanish _i_, or something very close to it, a "long _e_" of short duration.


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## duvija

https://www.academia.edu/14829522/ACOUSTICS_OF_SPANISH_AND_ENGLISH_CORONAL_STOPS

Aquí tienen una explicación detallada, que sospecho que no le interesa a nadie...


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