How to pronounce American English -ed and plural endings
Among the many aspects of learning a language, non-native English speakers learn how to pronounce English sounds to become easier to understand. There are a few “rules” around the way sounds are pronounced.
And the amazing part of it to me is that I learned these rules just by imitating the people who taught me how to speak (my family) when I learned the language as an infant. So, I was completely unaware of them. From a very young age, an infant begins the process of learning subtle things about the language that never really enters our consciousness. With a new grandson just a few months old, I can see firsthand how his language development is progressing. He is listening intently to his mom and dad as they talk to him, soothe him and imitate what he does. I’m hearing some vowels and soon he will be babbling with the consonants that are English. In other cultures, babies learn their language. After many repititions and tries, a young child masters the language and all the sounds.
A non-native English speaker doesn’t have this advantage and needs to learn the rules built into the language. That may mean adopting new sounds, pronouncing subtle changes or paying attention to intonation. What most second language learners do is adopt their native tongue intonation and apply it to the new language. Sometimes this works if the intonation patterns between languages are the similar. But often times, other languages don’t have the same patterns so it sounds very different.
Let me give you an example of a unique rule in American English.
We all know that to make some past tense verbs we add an -ed ending. But did you realize that when you pronounce the ending sometimes it is said with a /t/ sound, sometimes it is pronounced as a /d/ and other words are pronounced /-ed/.
Consider the word “walked.” If you say it slowly, note how you actually end the word with a /t/. But when you say the word “jogged” it is pronounced with a /d/. And, when you say the word “tainted,” it is pronounced as a /-ed/ If English is your first language, you subconsciously learned this by modeling English speaking adults. Non-native speakers must learn the rule of when to say /d/ vs. /t/ vs. /-ed/ and apply it in conversation.
The most common mistake that I hear is saying the /-ed/ ending when it isn’t supposed to be pronounced with one. So, instead of “assumed” pronounced “assumd” the /-ed/ ending is spoken and sounds like assumed. In order to make the correct pronunciation, it requires some knowledge and understanding of voiced and unvoiced consonants. Again, amazingly American English speakers learned the rules by imitating (without consciously knowing the rules) but non-native English learners have to learn the rule so they can apply the correct ending. Here are some words for you to try:
Listen to the way you pronounce them and determine if your -ed ending is pronounced with a /t/, /d/ or /-ed/. See the answer key at the bottom to determine if you are pronouncing correctly.
accept
add
admire
admit
brush
bubble
bump
burn
cough
We change the ending of plural words and pronounce them with an /s/, /z/ or /ez/. We know which plural ending to use based on the last sound of the word that will be pluralized. It all has to do with the last sound being voiced or unvoiced. If the word ends in a voiced consonant, we add the voiced /z/ to the word. If the word ends in a voiceless sound, we add /s/ which is also voiceless. If the ending of the word is a /s/, /z/, /sh/ or /ch/ we add /ez/ to the ending. Confused about voiced and voiceless consonants? (Very briefly, voiced sounds use the vocal cords and voiceless sounds aren’t made using the vocal cords.)
See how you do on these examples:
cats
books
caps
dogs
drums
dads
churches
kisses
dishes
If you would like to learn more about this rule and voiced vs. voiceless sounds in English, we’d love to show you. NativeAccent Software will help you master these subtle changes that will make a big difference in your intelligibility.
Answer Key
You did a great job if you pronounced these /-ed/ words like this:
accept ed
add ed
admire d
admit ed
brush t
bubble d
bump t
burn d
cough t
And the plurals are spoken like this:
Cats, books, caps are pronounced with an /s/.
Dogs, drums, dads are pronounced with a /z/.
Churches, kisses, and dishes are pronounced with /ez/ although it is spelled with an /-es/
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