Pronouncing –ed For the simple past tense of regular verbs

3 sounds

• /t/ walked

• /d/ robbed

• /Id/ located (also transcribed as /əd/)

Why the change?

• Place your fingertips on the front of your neck, and pronounce the following words. What do you feel on your fingers when you say the underlined sound?

• •vow | fake (vvv | fff)

• •zebra | snake (zzz | sss)

Why the change?

• –> When we pronounce voiced sounds, our vocal chords vibrate when we say those sounds. [v] [z]. Did you feel the vibration?

• –> When we pronounce voiceless sounds, our vocal chords do not vibrate. [f] [s]. No vibration.

• This vibration or lack of vibration then carries forward to the following sound in the word. Therefore, this vibration or lack of vibration explains why we pronounce the past tense of verbs in three voiced or voiceless ways: [t], [d] or [Id]/[əd]

• [t] final sound

• Verbs ending in voiceless sounds [p, k, θ, f, s, ʃ, tʃ] cause the “-ed” ending to be pronounced as the voiceless [t] (with no vocal chord vibration).

• Listen and Repeat• [p] “He popped a balloon.” [papt]

• [k] “They talked a lot” [takt]

• [θ] “th”: “She frothed a cup of milk” [frawθt]

• [f] “I laughed at the movie.” [læft]

• [s] “She kissed a frog.” [kIst]

• [ʃ] “sh”: “We brushed it off.” [bruʃt]

• [tʃ] “ch”: “I reached around for it.” [riytʃt]

• [d] final sound

• Verbs ending in the voiced sounds [b, g, ð, v, z, ʒ, dʒ, m, n, ŋ, r, l] cause the

“-ed” ending to be pronounced as a voiced [d].

• Listen and Repeat• [b] “It bobbed up and down.” [babd]

• [g] “He begged her to stay.” [bɛgd]

• [ð] “She breathed loudly.” [briyðd]

• [v] “They loved it.” [luvd]

• [z] “We raised her expectations.” [reyzd]

• [dʒ] “They bridged the gap.” [brIdʒd]

• [m] “I claimed it was mine.” [kleymd]

• [n] “They banned new members.” [bænd]

• [ŋ] “She banged into the chair.” [bæŋd]

• [r] “He cleared it up.” [kliyrd]

• [l] “I rolled up the paper.” [rowld]

• [əd] or [ɪd] final sound

• Verbs ending in the sounds [t] or [d] will cause the “-ed” ending of a verb to be pronounced as the syllable [əd] /[ɪd].

• Listen and Repeat

[t] “I visited the Empire State Building.” [vɪzɪtəd]

• [t] “She edited the research paper.” [ɛdɪtɪd]

• [d] “We ended the game early.” [ɛndɪd]

• [d] “He breaded the chicken.” [brɛdɪd]

Special thanks to:

• http://www.elementalenglish.com/past-tense-verb-pronunciation-t-d-id/