Lessons Unit 1, lesson 22
t as in tea
One consonant, on its own page. Hear it, watch where it sits in each word's sheet, then say the words yourself.
What do the marks mean?
Want the full walkthrough? Read the map explains every mark, with practice.
tt as in sit
Tap your tongue tip on the ridge behind your top teeth and release: t. Quick and dry — no vowel after it.
Now say it yourself
Read each word from its sheet, out loud, three times. Where there's a play button, listen first and copy what you hear. Slow is fine — speaking clearly matters more than speaking fast. Tap a word's microphone to record yourself and see which sounds landed.
Check your pronunciation, on this device. The first use downloads a small AI listener (about 40 MB, one time, then it's cached). Your voice is analyzed here in your browser — it never leaves your device.
Aspiration: the puff of air
At the start of a word, English t carries a little burst of breath — hold a hand in front of your mouth and say tea or toe; you should feel a puff land on it. Without that puff, native ears often hear d instead.
That puff disappears once t follows an s, like in stop, so don't force it everywhere — only on a clean, word-starting t.
Where it disappears
At the end of a word, t often gets barely released. In mat and at, the tongue can just touch the ridge and stop, without a crisp pop — that's normal and sounds natural.
Between vowels, this same t changes again — water and city turn it into a fast tap rather than a hard stop. You'll meet that trick properly later in this course.