Because of the notoriously confusing nature of English pronunciation in terms of phonemes, rather than letters of the alphabet, one must be aware, for example, that the word ‘enough’ begins with the same vowel phoneme as the beginning of the word ‘inept’, and ends with the same consonant as ‘stuff’. – English Phonetics and Phonology, Peter Roach
Disclaimer: I am not a phonologist, but merely someone interested in how the production of sounds and one’s native language influence their accent.
There are 5 letters in the English alphabet used to represent vowel sounds: a, e, i, o, and u. However, English has a large number of vowel sounds - and while not all of them might be used in a specific region, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) contains 28 sounds for English vowels (and here you can hear all of them). That’s 28 sounds from only 5 letters, and 27 more sounds for consonants. And that is only counting fundamental sounds, not even starting to consider other pronunciation rules, the exception to the other rules, and the exceptions to the exceptions. If you are a native speaker, you might begin to understand that English is not a consistent language when it comes to pronunciation.
There are ~380 million native English speakers. You might be familiar with the main grouping of English accents (such as American, British, or Australian accents), but each of them can be further split into tens of individual accents (such as Cockney, Southern American, or the New York accents), and each of them comes with its own particularities (called phonological features), such as the pin-pen merger in Southern US, the the cot-caught merger in New England, or the trap-bath split in some British accents.
It is worth noting the distinction between accent and dialect. An accent represents only a distinction in pronunciation, while the dialect refer[s] to a variety of a language which is different from others not just in pronunciation but also in such matters as vocabulary, grammar and word order. – English Phonetics and Phonology, Peter Roach
I’m one of the ~750 million non-native English speakers. I was exposed to English pretty early - most of the content I consumed was coming from the US, while the teachers adopted the Received Pronunciation (or BBC English, the standard British pronunciation). So by the time I finished school, my English was already a mix between how the Queen intended English to sound (Queen’s English is a common name for the Received Pronunciation), and some American pronunciation. Later I started interacting with native speakers from the US on a daily basis, and while I never had problems communicating, I did start noticing striking differences in the way I would pronounce certain words.
An example where I adopted the American pronunciation is for the sound ‘R’ - the standard British accent has non-rhotic ‘R’ sounds, meaning the sound ‘R’ is usually very soft in the middle or ending of words. Compare that to the rhotic American accent, where ‘R’ sounds are very pronounced (this is one of the most recognizable markers of an American accent). I always had a pronounced, or rhotic ‘R’ (and sometimes I even slip a rolling ‘R’), and you can see the difference in the phonetic transcription of the word ear: standard British pronunciation is ɪə, while the American pronunciation is ir.
An example where I adopted the British pronunciation is with something called lateral plosion - in short, this means the ’T’ and ‘L’ sounds are very pronounced and distinct, and very close to each other, in words such as gentleman: standard British pronunciation is ˈʤɛntlmən, while the official American pronunciation often suffers from changing the ’T’ to a quick ’D’, like ˈʤɛnɾəlmən.
And with the multiple pronunciations (allophones) of the sound ’T’ is where I, and lots of non-native speakers, have most of the issues.
The glottal stop
A glottal stop (ʔ) is a type of sound produced by obstructing the flow of air in the glottis (the opening between the vocal cords). The simplest example of a glottal stop is the stop at the middle of uh-oh!. In many American accents, the glottal stop is used for the glottal replacement, or T-glottalization - replacing the sound ’T’ with a glottal stop, often used in regular speech in order to accelerate the rhythm of speaking. It is most common in words such as mountain, fountain, or certain - where instead of a true ’T’ sound, a glottal stop is used instead:
- mountain -
ˈmaʊntənvs.ˈmaʊnʔn - fountain -
ˈfaʊntənvs.ˈfaʊnʔn - certain -
ˈsɜrtənvs.ˈsɜrʔn
As it turns out, the rule all of the three pronunciations above follow is that a glottal stop is used instead of a true ’T’ sound whenever it appears before an unstressed ‘N’ sound. But it’s not the only occurrence - glottal stops can also be used instead of a final ’T’, and this YouTube video does a nice job of explaining the glottal stop in American accents.
But a glottal stop is not the only modifier to the ’T’ sound in American pronunciation.
The alveolar tap
The alveolar tap (ɾ), or flap, is a consonant sound made when the tongue makes a brief contact with the alveolar ridge. A commonly used type of alveolar tap in American accents is called flapping, when a ’T’ sound is pronounced as an alveolar tap (ɾ), most often sounding like a short ’D’ when found between a stressed and an unstressed vowel. For example, in the words better - ˈbɛɾər, water - ˈwɔɾər, or gentleman - ˈʤɛnɾəlmən
This phenomenon becomes interesting when pairs of words begin to sound exactly the same when pronounced with the flap, such as matter and madder, or latter and ladder, but can also be found in rapid speech, connecting multiple words, like in get over, for example.
There are also words where the sound ’T’ can be replaced by either a glottal stop, or an alveolar tap, and depending on the accent, it is possible that both forms are found - for example the words button - ˈbʌtən (with a clear ’T’), ˈbʌɾən (with the alveolar tap), ˈbʌʔn (with the glottal stop), butter, or curtain, all can be pronounced in (at least) 3 ways, and this YouTube video exemplifies the phenomenon.
This is one of the main sources of inconsistency in my accent - sometimes I substitute the glottal stops and alveolar taps, sometimes I don’t - and this is because it is still a conscious choice I have to make when pronouncing the words.
If you are a native speaker, you most likely don’t have to think about any of this. But for non-native speakers, depending on the particularities of your native language and accent, they could interfere with making the exact sound a native speaker would make. For example:
- if you’re coming from a language with strong retroflex consonants (sounds pronounced with the tongue fully curved, and flexing back - the American ‘R’ sound is produced this way, and the sound can be heard in multiple languages from India, where the sounds ’T’, or ’D’ are retroflex consonants), you could have difficulties performing the alveolar tap
- if you’re coming from a language with no retroflex approximant (French, for example), you will have issues pronouncing the rhotic ‘R’ sounds
- the voiced and voiceless ‘th’ sounds (fricatives) (ð, as in this, and θ, as in thing) are missing from a lot of languages, and are usually difficult to learn - and this is before even mentioning the assimilation process for these sounds, where two different words are almost pronounced together in rapid speech (as in read these, or this thing)
These are just a few examples of particularities of the American accent (not considering the general inconsistencies of English in general), and how, depending on someone’s native language, region, or exposure to other languages, it might be difficult to pronounce some sounds. Once you are aware of these accent traits it becomes impossible not to hear them in day-to-day conversations, but at the end of the day, they are unimportant - it is amazing how we are able to communicate with people from all over the world, and most of the time have absolutely no problems understanding one another, regardless of accents.
If English is three languages in a trenchcoat pretending to be a language, then pronunciation is that trenchcoat made of hundreds of patches from different fabric.