ENGLISH ASPIRATION: how to make aspirated and unaspirated sounds
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- English aspirated sounds how to make unaspirated sounds, with examples in various accents and languages.
This video looks at the effect of aspiration on following vowels*. I explain the effect on following *approximants in this video: • English ASPIRATION Par...
And don't miss my new video on when NOT to aspirate in English:
• Speech is really SBEECH!
The sheer ease with which you effortlessly switch between accents so perfectly it almost sounds like a completely different person. I'm a native Spanish speaker and you straight up sounded dubbed over when you said taco 🤣
the cat was hilarious
anita gobotswang 😂😂😂
It really was 😻.
caAT
Cats win the Internet again 😊
Your explanation of the slightly affricated English t finally explains why my roommate tells me I often pronounce some Mandarin words that start with t (like 天 (tian)) incorrectly! Thank you for delving into aspects of English that aren't discussed much.
Interesting. You're welcome.
I can't find the words to explain how this video has been important for my learning journey. It has been like swallowing the red pill Orpheo offered to Neo (The Matrix) and unveil the mysteries of English pronunciation. Therefore here is my teeny tiny contribution to support your upcoming work 🙏 Thank you!
I like how clearly you explained everything. I also liked how you gave real life examples for us to use (Tokyo, take a piece of cake etc). I'm studying Speech and Language Therapy at the moment so I'm glad I found your channel :)
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Good luck with your studies.
In Korean language, P,T,K sounds are distinguished by three differences in aspiration.
For example, /tal/(moon), /t͈al/( daughter), /tʰal/(mask).
I find it awfully hard. ㅋㅌㅊㅍ, those are kind of ok but the difference between ㄷ ㄸ for instance is still a mystery to me
@@pugilat123456 For me ㄸ sounds like Dutch K and ㅋ sounds like English K. ㄷ is very much like English G.
Korean aspiration is really just pitch
/tal/'moon' is really [tʱal˧˨] mid/lowish pitch
/t͈al/ is regular tenuis [tal] (with a high/falling pitch)
/t͈ tʰ/ have a high/falling pitch
/t t͈ tʰ/ is better described as /d t tʰ/
oh dear, this channel is a holy grail! living in the uk, I'm trying to make myself sound closer to native SSB, and this really helps to understand the differences. at the same time, I've come to realise that I will probably never be able to :)
many thanks for the videos!
This is an excellent explanation of a concept that is important in the learning of many languages. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge. In Korean, from what I understand so far, there are pairs of consonants that are distinguished just by whether they are aspirated or not. Even though Korean wasn’t mentioned, this video got me a little closer to getting the difference. Especially the whisper to voiced method. And the accent demos, too
You're welcome. Where English has only voiced and voiceless plosives, Korean has 'plain', 'tense' and 'aspirated'. Tricky!
2:17 this is the most helpful demonstration of aspiration i've seen. sometimes it really helps to visualize
I must admit, I didn't have time (meaning "was too lazy") to learn anything about aspiration. I'd simply imitate natives' pronunciation without even knowing I aspirated some letters--shame on me, haha. And now, you're explaining everything in short five minutes! If I only had such talented teachers back in school =) Thank you!
Geoff, your evidential phonetics is invaluable for me and my students who are mostly English as a second or third language and or dutch actors. Anything that cuts through the mentational and into the directly observable physical works best. And now with renewed knowledge back to your marvellous book: English after RP. BEST X 10, William S.
Thanks for the kind words, William.
As you spoke, I couldn’t quite understand what aspiration was until you “turned it off.” Then with taco, Tokyo and papa, it became quite clear to me. Thank you.
My native language dont have aspiration but I've been learning foreign languages like English, Korean, etc and understand that there are some alphabet that need to be added some air when pronounce it and I just know that this thing is called aspiration omg....
Thank you sm for your very well explanation!!
Excellent presentation! Respect and a big thank you to the presenter. Clear, concise and up to the point. Drawing a parallel with other languages is also a good idea.
+Olga Shapoval Thank you Olga. Yes, I think comparisons help.
+EnglishSpeechServices
For sure they do. Also, they help strengthen the rapport between students and the teacher.
Excellent! I'm lucky to have come across this video, it's clearly explained. I'm ESL learner and it's very useful to me. Thank you a lot, and I'm following you.
+Facundo Guzmán Many thanks for the kind words.
I’m one of those nerds who was always subconsciously aware of many of the things you’re talking about in videos… it’s great to have them explained and to realise I’m a bit smarter than I thought!
Devanagri (hindi) has more aspirated sounds ('j, jh, g, gh etc) than English but Indians don't aspirate because we are taught 't', 'p' as a non aspirated alphabet in preschools.
Kapil Which is not proper English.
My impression is that in Hindi, there are both aspirated and non-aspirated versions of P T K, and also of the corresponding voiced consonants: B D G, and that those differences carry meaning. That's why some words are transliterated into the Latin alphabet with an "h", e.g. "dharma" -- to indicate an aspirated D sound. I don't know if "darma" is a word, but if it is, I imagine it's a different one, with a different meaning. Am I correct about all that?
@@davorzmaj753 yeah right darma (दर्म) is different dharma(धर्म). In fact, Hindi has additional D related sound which is not present in English
Aspirated -> द (da [d̪]), ड (ḍa [ɖ])
Corresponding Non aspirated -> ध (dha
[d̪ʱ]), ढ (ḍha [ɖʱ])
@@Aditya-te7oo श द फ़ कप, there is no such thing as "PROPER ENGLISH" its an international language, and hence geographical variations are valid dialects. If not, then Aussie and American are also improper.
South Africa also has its own English accent.
Idk why when it comes to India,SOME people call it improper and illiterate...its NOT! Its just nativization based on convenience
Sorry to say this but, your perspective is flawed.
💯% you are very correct.
I'd like to add that,
Hindi has a total of 10 aspirated consonants/ व्यंजन.
5 of them are for voiceless consonants i.e (क च ट त प)(k, ch, [ʈ], [t̪], p ) hence aspirated with the so called "voiceless glottal fricative" [ ʰ]
And the rest 5 are for corresponding voiced consonants i.e (ग ज ड द ब)(g, j, [ɖ], [d̪], b) and aspirated with a voiced glottal fricative [ ʱ](which is absent in English)
Also, the Indian language of Marathi, which is also written in Devanagari has all of the consonants mentioned above plus phonetically marked aspirated bilabial nasal [mʱ] and aspirated labio-dental approximant [ʋʱ] (kinda like English v of 'evil'.) And maybe more non phonetic aspirations also exist in it. 😊
Dear Dr Geoff, I have fallen into a very deep rabbit hole with these enlightening and superbly produced videos of yours. On the subject of aspiration, since moving to Canada from Britain three decades ago, I have come across a few instances of aspiration that surprised me. In Canadian English, and this is something that seems to particularly affect CBC radio presenters, and mostly women, believe it or not, you will occasionally hear what seems to me to be exaggerated aspiration on T sounds, as in "Saturday" (Sat-hur-day - aspiration not affrication). I came to the conclusion that these speakers are trying not to sound American and to avoid using a flap (Sad-urday) and ending up overdoing it. In the case of "Alberta" the effect is sometimes doubled (Al-bhurt-hah). And in Canadian French, as you may know, very pronounced affrication in T sounds (ts-ts) is ever-present. During my first week here in Québec, sitting on a bus listening to two teenage girls chatting animatedly I had the impression of being in an aviary with a flock of small birds. Soon got used to it and do it myself all the time. Keep up the good work!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am an ESL teacher for adult beginners and this will improve my service to my students! I wish you good health, and increased $$ success with all your endevors.
when you showed the cat I LOST IT
I love how you give examples from around the world (and Britain - even after studying a lot of pre-Nirman history, I'm endlessly fascinatrd by how many accents are crammedcinto an island 2/3rds the size of California!)
I have started learning Tagalog so having to speak words with no aspiration (B, P, T) - It really helped me when I tested with a piece of paper by my mouth. Thanks
You're welcome!
I never realized this distinction until reading it in a book about pronunciation of P, T, and K in Esperanto (which is unaspirated).
The paper example is perfect (though it might be better if the cat were somehow incorporated).
Unfortunately the cat can't produce plosives at all! Thanks for commenting!
oh my god ..the cat ! :) love this ahhaha
Absolutely smashing! Finally I understood the phenomenon of 'aspiration' (being a native speaker of german). Is there a chance that you could make a video on the glottal stop, which is such a pain for german speakers when pronouncing english.
Thanks, glad it helped. Glottal stops are fascinating, and I touch on them in my new video on ejectives. I intend to cover more aspects of the glottal stop in future videos.
Omg, that part with the cat was so random and funny! Great video!
what an amazing teacher ! words are not enough to thank you :)
What kind words! Thanks so much for watching.
Wow just wow!!! I love this so much you managed to make this subject fun!! I wish you were my professor, not calling mine proficient, perhaps we're on different wavelengths but man are we (you and me) are on the same radio station!! Thank you and have a great day!
I know you're literally a dr for accents but your demonstration of various accents is really impressive.
thank you so much you really helped me! and the way you explain is very smooth and clear
Hello Amira AKH, I'm very glad to have been of help. Good luck with your studies!
+EnglishSpeechServices yes did help :D I want to watch all your videos and wait for more ❤
+EnglishSpeechServices tho I got a question if I may ask, do glottal stops exist in English? if so what are they? thank you.
Amira AKH The glottal stop isn't a full contrastive sound of English, which is why dictionaries don't show it. But it's used by many English speakers: 1. in place of 't' in words like 'written' or 'Scotland', 2. as a 'hard attack' before a word-initial vowel, especially a stressed one.
+EnglishSpeechServices true in scotland they don't pronunce it 't', so its in an accent. In Arabic we have one sound we use frequently. very interesting! thank you again ❤
Every lesson is a revelation. Merci!
The apologies in italian were a special little touch, i appreciate that
Grazie mille
The paper method was very fascinating, since it makes aspirations so easy to visualize.
Excellent video! It is gonna be useful in my Phonetics and Phonology exam. Thank you so much!!
!
Glad to be of help, Leyla. Thanks for commenting and feel free to post any questions you have!
I'm studying English, this video was very helpful for my pronunciation! Thank you!!
Thanks for letting me know, Gabriela!
Thank you for this video. It is a very clear explanation! It is amazingly good
Fun fact: On the Danish Islands, a /t/ is affricated just like in English but in Jutland it has a regular, non-affricated aspiration.
(one minor difference, though: Danish aspirated stops are normally lenis, not fortis as in English)
THANK YOU! This video is PERFECT for my American Spanish learners!
Glad it was helpful! Btw I've uploaded some more videos recently!
I'm having my phonetics exam soon. This helps me a lot. Thank you very much!
Glad to be of help!
Your explanation was so clear and helped me a lot! Thank you so much. Greetings from Argentina.
im L1 portuguese and L2 english
ive watched so many videos on aspirations but for some reason i just! dont! get it!
apparently i learnt it somehow, language is so magical
clear and useful, thank you. I was wondering why I hear a sort of "s" sound in english speakers, especially british english.
Also in the end of a word, like "about" for instance. I asked some friend, native speakers, they were able to reply, so natural it is to them!
How did I live before "meeting" Dr. Lindsey?? I was born in California and studied Latin in school. Later I lived in Spain, then in Milan, for a total of 10 years between them. I am 100% Scandinavian, but was drawn to the Romance Languages. I am now fluent in Castilian Spanish, with it's weird "Le-ism" and the c & z followed by E or I lisping sound, although in California I use a more south -of-the-border accent on purpose. I speak standard French, and can speak Italian fluently. However, when in Rome, I hear MUCH slang from the teenagers, and don't understand a thing! I can understand the Milanese working-class dialect, but can't speak it. Later, I spent a good chunk of time in Palermo, and can understand that Sicilian dialect, but not others. I LOVE LANGUAGE and LINGUISTICS!!!
Now I am going to listen closely to my Lithuanian friend for aspiration!
Would be fascinating to hear you talk about the differences between the ng sounds after front and back vowels
the cat part was so funny, hahaha
Greets from Argentina!
Thank you!
You are an amazing teacher. Thanks you 🙏
Brilliant video as always
Fluent speaker of Hindi here, from India. I was just speaking about this to a friend. I have a feeling Indian English doesn't use the aspiration for p/k/t when written that way, is because Hindi and other languages that share the same script have a separate set of consonants that represent something close to but not exactly, the aspirated versions. If written in English, these words would actually be spelt with an 'h' - for example "phool"(flower). So it's possible our minds unconsciously make that distinction between p/ph etc when we see them written with or without the h.
There is a method to transcribe the English aspirated p/t/k more faithfully in Hindi. पः/टः/कः . Had you been trying to replicate SSB, although, it wouldn't have been perfect but it would have got you closer than प/ट/क does. But, I suspect that SSB had never been the guiding post. It was RP. The lack of emphasis on aspiration of p/t/k in English teaching in India may have to do with the fact that RP used unaspirated p/k/t and English teaching methods that used Devanagari transliteration as an intermediary have simply retained the sounds the way they used to be taught in the time of British India and immediately after.
Some time back, I happened to listen to a clip from first season of Doctor Who. I wasn't looking at the screen and I remember I was confused for a bit. It was amusing how everyone sounded weirdly Indian. It was oddly similar to how old Indian politicians, news-readers, professors etc. spoke. That led me to this hypothesis. Could one of the reasons for the distinctive features of Indian English be that it evolved from that posh RP English and so retains many of its features?
@@icygoldcitadel Interesting hypothesis regarding the origins of Indian English being from RP.
The alternative method you've mentioned of representing aspirated p/k/t - at least in Hindi and Marathi it gets pronounced as "paha,. As in Nripaha. I don't know if I'm being able to articulate what I'm trying to say. Don't have access to a devnagari keyboard rn.
PS: your knowledge about various accents is sooo cool!
it helps me a lot! thanks ...and ca-at whispering part with real cat is lovely point of this video:)♡ have a nice day!
I'm glad it helps!
Excellent! Thrilled to have found your channel :) From an English teacher in France .
You know what you're doing 👏👏👏👏👏 you can be an excellent speech therapist 🙂.
This video helped me realise why I couldn't tell if I was aspirating t or not. Affricating it wasn't somethings I'd though of, and it's something I do a lot apparently.
I'm glad it was of use.
Wow this has changed my idea about pronunciation. Thank you.
I'm glad it was helpful.
Finally I understood! Thank you professor!
I am a pronunciation teacher and was looking for additional tips to explain the T sound! The ts stuff was extremely helpful, as well as the whisper trick. Gonna try it today on my student!
Thank you! I hope it helps.
@@DrGeoffLindsey it did! :)
@@neko_neko9 Wonderful!
this was so helpful, thank you dr geoff lindsey
It's always fun to teach children aspirated sounds with a piece of paper. They never get enough of it .
T with S was really helpful, thank you !
Brilliant explanation. Many thanks
As a speaker from the very north of England I was very confused by this video until you clarified accents. "What do you mean breathing out when saying take?".
Wow! This was informative! Thank you!
4:16 Words with P-, T-, K-, Ch- initial syllables in Standard Japanese can be pronounced quite differently from person to person, some pronounce them aspirated while others weakly aspirated or non-aspirated at all. I learned it in my Japanese phonology class. Any Edokko Japanese can relate?
That was amaziiiing. Thank you soooo much for this video. I'm studying linguistics and this helped me alot.
Thanks for your kind words. I'm glad it was helpful.
This was really interesting! As a native American English speaker, I didn't know what gave Indian English that specific sound, but now I do. I think it will a lot of practice, but I'll try speaking some English unaspirated!
In English P, T, and K sound like Ph, Th, and Kh, probably because this makes them easier to distinguish from B, D, and G.
And English T sounds like Ch, because the TH sound already takes the dental space. So in the row TH - T - CH the T sound is shifted toward CH.
Your videos are the best! Thanks so much!
That's extremely flattering! Thank you so much!
I,m watching from India thank you for sharing sir
Excellent explanation 👍👏👏👍
That's gorgeous. I like your lessons so much.
I am taking a course on English, and your video is amazing. I learnt English from kindergarten, there is no other language I am as good as in, like English, but we are not taught aspiration in India, the proper way to pronounce. The teachers themselves don't know them. The British thought they should perhaps not reveal that, lest some Indians would speak like them. I hope in a couple of years to sound like a native speaker, but it takes several hours of the day to practice.
Indian teachers do not teach students to speak the English P, T, K sounds with aspirations probably because, for Indians, aspirated sounds are usually written with a consonant followed by an 'H' (Bollywood movie titles are written using English alphabets and 'h' is used for denoting aspirated Hindi sounds).
Thanks much ..... helped me through my course
Very amazing explanation!!! Thumbs up! ^^
+man gentle I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for commenting.
ahhh relearning mandarin and wasn't sure what they meant by aspirated and unaspirated. thank you!!!
You're welcome!
I never noticed the affrication before in my own voice when I say /t/ sounds. I always just sort of assumed it was regular aspiration and never payed close enough attention to it until now.
I remember when I was first learning English, my teacher made me repeat the word "cat" over and over, without explanation. Now I understand she was teaching me to aspirate, as I was saying the 'k' sound unaspirated without realizing
I hope it helps to understand the process now!
Thank you so much sir now I have understand the difference between aspired and non aspired
You're welcome!
As an American, hearing you speak in an American accent is so funny because like… it’s so accurate, but it’s such an abrupt transition from your English accent that it sounds at the same time very familiar and out of place.
Loved the tip ❤❤❤
1:50 me to my boyfriend after buying stuff.
🤣🤣🤣
All Nialls 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Danish people are sometimes taught that the short "s" sound inside aspirated "t" is an affect or an accent. It's interesting to me that you call it a native way to talk.
A cat? Really??? Hahaha very good!!!
Willow says hi :)
I learned how to unaspirate through the work "ski" where the "k" is unaspiated. From there i figured out how to isolate it
at least an explanation I get!! thanks a lot for sharing! greetings from Argentina.
p/d: I loved the part of the cute cat :)
I'm glad you liked it!
I'm a native Spanish speaker and when studying English phonetics and phonology in my degree in English Language I started to suddenly and unconsciously transfer aspiration onto Spanish consonants and my family started to notice and ask me about my weird way of pronouncing common Spanish words😂😂😂😅
In Hindi, aspirations are explicit. We even have a different characters for aspirated letters. Also in Hindi written in roman characters, we add an h for aspirated sounds. So p, t, k are not aspirated and ph, th, kh are. So when we read key, we don't aspirate the k because it's not written khey.
Perfect, thank you !!
Our teacher showed us this video and the entire class bursted out laughing at the Cat 😂😂😂
Thanks for sharing that!
hahaha... the cat in the video made me laugh, excelent idea. By the way, I'm an ESL student too. This video is very useful.
Glad you liked it Daniel. Good to know that it was useful for you.
Truly Excellent. I am trying to learn -un aspirated K as used in Thai. This video does not directly help-but it is a good start
Thank you. I'm glad it was of some use!
I lived in France for a while. You wouldn't believe the amount of people who thought my name was Paris (pronounced in the French way) because the similarity between English initial B and French unaspirated P was confusing.
2:17 I love this part ✨✨
To this day, I'm traumatized by my memories of sitting in the phonetics lab at uni, trying to get rid of my natural/native aspiration while speaking French. The teacher eventually gave up on me. I will never not sound German when speaking French...
I am now considering to take the Summer course in English Phonetics.
+Jay Xhen Goh Please come! You'll be very welcome.
Thanks, is there any person that I can contact to get more information?
Sorry for the delay in replying.
www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/study/cpd/cpd-courses/scep/contactscep
Or contact me through my website.
Learning Hindi. This helped a lot.
I'm glad to hear that.
I love you mister thank you for this video
A fantastic video!
Thanks for your comment!
I'm a native speaker of American English, but I don't think I use any affrication when I say the word "tea". But when I try to say it that way, it seems that the main difference is that the very tip of the tongue is slightly pointed down (as in when articulating an /s/), rather than completely touching the hard palate.
Very well explained
your accents are so good