How to Pronounce ‘-ED’ in Past Tense (Beginner Tips)

Hello.

My name is Emma, and today we are going to talk about "ed" pronunciations.

So, "ed" is used in English to show the past tense.

We add it to a verb to make it a past tense verb.

So, for example, "Yesterday", so this is the past, "I talked to my friend."

"Talked" with "ed" is a verb, and it's been put into the past tense; that's why there's

an "ed".

Now, what's the problem?

Well, the problem is I meet many people who are

learning English or who have learned English.

Some people even have been studying English

for years, but they often make mistakes with

the pronunciation of "ed".

This is one of the most common things I see.

So, for example, I'll hear people say "talk-ed";

"Oh, yesterday I talk-ed to my friend."

Now, if you listen to how I say it, "Yesterday

I talked to my friend", there's a difference

in the pronunciation.

So, today I'm going to teach you how to pronounce

"ed", and I'm also going to teach you a very

special way to help prevent these mistakes.

I call it the blend method.

I find this really helps students learn how to pronounce "ed" correctly.

So, if you know that, you know, there's different

ways to pronounce "ed", you've studied this

before, there's something that I can teach you still about "ed".

And if this is new for you, if you don't know

about "ed" pronunciations, I have a lot to

teach you today.

So, to get started, I have this question.

How many ways do we pronounce "ed" in English?

Okay, so there are three - that's right, one, two, three.

Three ways to pronounce "ed" in English.

What are the three ways?

We have - so, this represents pronunciation.

This means "id", so some past tense words,

like "wanted", "visited", they have this "id"

sound.

"Some ed" just is a "t" sound, so a "t" sound, "t".

So, for example, "watched", and then we also have this "d".

Some "ed"s sound like a "d" sound, so for example, "planned", "planned".

So, I'll go over each of these areas in a moment, and we'll look at a lot of common

examples for "id", "t", and "d", but first I

want you to warm up your ears and get ready

to listen.

I have here - one, two, three, four, five, six

- six verbs, they're all in the past tense,

they all end in "ed".

I will say the verb, and I want you to choose, is it an "id", "t", or "d"?

How am I pronouncing the "ed"?

The first step to learning "ed" pronunciations is

to get used to listening for "ed" pronunciations.

So, let's start with the first one, "wanted", "wanted".

Which category is it?

It's this one, "wanted".

Okay, what about the next one, "talked", "talked".

I "talked" to my sister.

Is it "eh-eh" or "duh"?

It's the "t" sound, "talked", and I'll explain why in a moment.

"Called", "called".

Okay, so this is a little bit harder, I think,

because you might think it's this, you might

think it's this.

When I say "called", it's actually the "d" sound.

So, and notice I'm not saying "talked", "called",

that's what a lot of people who are learning

English say, but the correct pronunciation is "talked", "called".

Okay, what about this one, "watched", "watched".

Okay, so this is actually the "t" sound, "watched".

Not "watched", "watched".

Okay, "decided", "decided".

This has the "id" sound, "decided".

Let's look at the last one, "opened", "opened", "opened".

Okay, I find that usually the ones that have the

"d" sound are sometimes harder for listening,

but yes, this one actually has the "d" sound.

So this might have been difficult for you, and that's completely okay.

It takes time to learn to listen for the pronunciations,

as well as to say the pronunciations of "ed"

correctly.

Now, what we are going to do is we are going

to first cover "id", that's the easiest one,

then we'll look at "t" and "d" and we'll learn

when do we pronounce "ed" as an "id", a "t"

or a "d".

Okay, so I have here some common verbs that have the "id" sound when we use "ed" with

them.

So, I want to first say that "id" is like its own syllable, so you'll see what I mean

in a moment.

So we have the word "wanted".

You heard "id", this part has two parts, "want",

"id", okay, "needed", "decided", "started",

"invited", "weighted", "ended", "painted", "hated", "protected".

So this is probably the "ed" you're used to pronouncing.

This is usually the "ed" sound people don't have much problems with.

The problem is the "t" and the "d", which we'll get to later.

But, when do we pronounce "ed" like this?

Well, it depends on the sound before the "ed".

If we have a "t" sound or a "d" sound before the "ed", we pronounce it like "id".

So, for example, here we have a "t", "d", "d", "t", "t", "t", "d", "t", "t", "t".

So, if you have a verb ending with a "t"

sound or a "d" sound, pronounce it like "id".

Now let's get to "t" and "d" and my blending technique.

Okay, so the next pronunciation for "ed" we will talk about is the "t" pronunciation.

So "ed" can be pronounced like a "t" or a "t" sound.

So, I'll explain when this happens in a moment,

but first, let's look at some of the most

common verbs that you would use the "t" sound

for, and then I'll teach you my technique

on how to pronounce these properly.

So, we have "helped", "liked", "watched",

"talked", "kissed", "hoped", "missed", "danced".

So notice I did not say "helped", "liked", "watched", "talked", "kissed"; no, I just

made that strong "t" sound.

So, if you're having trouble with this pronunciation,

what you can do is you can take your finger,

you write down the word you want to practice, so for example, "help".

So if I wanted to practice "helped", what I would do is I would write down "help" and

I would write down the "t".

And then with my finger, I would start to slowly say both, "help", "t", "help", "t",

so I want you to do that when I point, "help", "t", "help", "t".

So we have the two sounds, "help" and "t",

now what we want to do is bring them together.

So what you can do to practice, of course

you're not going to do this in conversation,

but this is a good way to practice these words

beforehand, is you take your finger and you

just move it while you pronounce it.

So watch this, "help", "t", "help", "t", "help",

"t", and then what I can start doing is moving

my finger a little bit faster, "helped", "helped", "helped", okay.

So I want you to try this because I think it

really can help you with your "ed" pronunciation

when "ed" sounds like "t".

Let's try another one.

We have here a very common verb, "like", so

when "like" has an "ed" on it, we can do the

same thing.

So on a piece of paper I would write "like"

and I would write a "t", and then what I would

do is first pronounce both, so "like", "t",

"like", "t", "like", "t", and now once I have

those two sounds down, I'm going to move my finger to pronounce it.

So I'll go "like", "t", "like", "t", "like",

"t", and then I'm going to start moving my

finger a bit faster, "like", "t", "like", "t", "liked", "liked", okay.

So I find that using the finger can really

help your brain learn how to pronounce these

words like this.

So let's try this one more time, and you can

do this with all these words, but let's do

it with "watch".

"Watch" is another common word, another common

verb that with "ed" it has that "t" sound.

So I wrote "watch" and I wrote the "t", so I

can say "watch", "t", "watch", "t", and now

what I'm going to do is blend them, I'm going to put them together.

"Watch", "t", "watch", "t", okay, and then I can start doing it faster once I get the

hang of it, "watched", "watched", okay.

So again using that finger cue can really help you with the pronunciation of "ed".

So when do we use the "t" sound?

So we talked about "id" before.

When do we use the "t" sound for "ed" pronunciations?

Well, let me tell you.

Alright.

So, why do we pronounce "ed" like a "t" sound?

When does this happen?

Well, it can get a little confusing because I have to teach you about something called

voiceless consonants.

So, when we have a verb and the last sound before the "ed" is a voiceless consonant,

we pronounce "ed" like a "t".

So, before we get to voiceless consonants, I'll give you some examples.

You can also think about this with letters.

If "ed" comes after a "p" or like a "puh" as in "help", then you would pronounce it

like a "t".

If it's a "k", so in this word you have a "k" here, so "ed" is going to be pronounced

like a "t" sound.

If you have an "s", so a verb that ends in

"s", "ed" is going to sound like a "t" sound.

If you have a verb that ends in a "ch" sound, then "ed" is pronounced like a "t".

And then if you have a word that ends in like

a "f" sound, so I know this is "gh", but it's

pronounced like an "f", "laugh", then "ed" is going to be pronounced like a "t".

And then finally, if you have some "th" sounds at the end, like in "bathed", the...

After the "th", "ed" is going to be pronounced like a "t".

So, you can remember it based off of these

letters or, you know, these letters represent

sounds, so if you have a "p" sound, a "k"

sound, a "s" sound, a "ch" sound, a "f" sound,

or a "th" sound, then you would pronounce, like, "ed" like a "t".

You can also do it a different way.

You can learn what a voiceless consonant is.

So, a consonant are these types of letters or sounds, so they are not vowels.

They are not "a", "e", "i", "o", or "u".

A consonant are the other types of sounds in English.

So, I've drawn this diagram.

I'm sorry I'm not a great artist, but I think it's good enough.

There might be some anatomy that's incorrect,

but that's okay because I want you to understand

this idea of voiceless consonants.

So we have here our vocal cords or our voice box.

So, some sounds in English, we use our voice box.

It's right here, and for some sounds, even if you touch your throat right now, you'll

feel some movement.

It's moving.

You might even feel a "zzz" like a buzz.

So that happens when the voice box is moving.

Sometimes the voice box or the vocal cords, they do not move, and air just comes from

the lungs through here.

There's no movement, and it goes through the mouth out as a sound.

When there's no movement here, we call that a voiceless consonant.

So, for example, if I say this, "p", "p", and I feel my throat, "p", "p", there's no

movement here.

All the sound is actually coming through my

mouth, so we call that voiceless because we're

not using our voice box.

We're not vibrating our vocal cords.

What's happening when I make a "p" or a "p"

sound is the air is just coming through, there's

no movement here, and it's just coming through my mouth.

It's the same with all of these.

We call these voiceless consonants because they're the sounds in English where there's

no movement here.

So you can see with "k", like the "k" sound, it's coming from the mouth.

If I feel "k", "k", there's no buzz, but feel it

when you say "g", "g", you'll feel a difference.

For "s", you shouldn't feel anything here if you go "sss" because this isn't moving,

it's all coming through the mouth, but if you said "zzz" like a "zed" sound, you do

feel movement.

So that's what I mean by voiceless consonants.

So, for some people, they like this description

or explanation, so they will figure out if

a word ends in a voiceless consonant by feeling their throat and thinking about it.

For other people, they don't like this, they

think it's confusing, and so they just prefer

to memorize, and they'll just say, okay, "p"

sounds, "k" sounds, "s" sounds, "ch" sounds,

"f" sounds, and "th" sounds, okay, I'll just memorize that.

You can do it either way, whatever is easier

for you, but that's what I mean by voiceless

when you see any verbs ending in these sounds, you pronounce it like a "t".

So we've covered "id", we've covered "t",

now let's look at the third way to pronounce

"ed", and that is the "d" sound.

So it's like a "d", "d".

So first let's look at some common verbs that

have that "d" sound, and I want you to listen

very carefully.

So we have "loved", "called", "cried", "lived",

"moved", "closed", "opened", "smiled", "played".

So notice I'm not saying "loved", "called", "I cried", "I lived", no, no, no.

What we're doing is we're just saying the verb and then pronouncing a "d" sound.

So just like what we did with the "t", we can

do the same thing with our finger to practice

this "d" sound.

So I have here the verb "love", like here,

so if I want to pronounce it properly, I can

first start by writing this on a piece of paper.

I write the word "love", and then I write the "d".

And what I can do is say them separately first,

so "loved", "loved", "loved", and then what

I can do is use my finger, combine them into

one word, "loved", "loved", "loved", and then

I start trying to do it faster, "loved", "loved", "I loved it".

Let's try another example with this.

So now I'm going to work on the word "call".

Actually, I shouldn't have written this here, let me just...

So we're doing this one next, so I have "call"

and I have a "d", so what I can do is first

pronounce them separately, "called", "called",

and now I'm going to use my finger and blend

them, "called", "called", "called", and then

when I'm ready, I can start moving my finger

faster and pronouncing it all together, "called",

"called", "called", "I called my sister."

All right, so let's look at another example of this.

I have here "live", so that's this one, and now

I'm going to do the same thing, I've written

"live" and I've written "d", and I'm going to use my finger to help my pronunciation.

First I'll start separately, "lived", "lived".

Now I'm going to blend it with my finger, "lived", "lived", and then I'm going to go

faster, "lived", "lived", "I lived in Toronto for many years."

So you might have to take some time with blending,

I'm doing it quickly, but it might take you

a little bit of time, and that's fine.

I recommend that you try to use this strategy

with the rest of the words here and see if

it helps your pronunciation.

Now, the next question is when do we use the "d" for "ed"?

So, this is when we pronounce "ed" like a "d" sound.

We do it when a verb ends in a voiced consonant.

So I already explained voiceless.

Let's first think about some of the letter sounds a verb might end in.

So, here we have "l", so if you see a verb ending in an "l" sound, like "call", "ed"

then becomes pronounced like a "d", "called".

If there's an "n" sound, like "clean", "clean"

ends in an "n" sound, the "ed" is pronounced

like a "d".

If a verb ends in a "b" or a "b" sound, like

"rubbed", we would pronounce it like a "d".

Same with an "r", so "answer" ends in an "r" sound, so we would say "answered".

"Love" ends in a "v" sound, so here's the "v".

So, if you see a "v" and then "ed" after it,

you're going to pronounce it like a "d", "loved".

"M", verbs that end in "m", you're going to add that "d" sound when you're pronouncing

"ed".

"G", so "hug" is an example, "hugged".

"Zed", so this can be confusing because sometimes

"s"s are actually pronounced like "zed", so

for example, here we actually have a "zed", "buzzed", so if you hear that "z" sound, we

would pronounce "ed" like a "d" or like a "d".

For a "y", an "e", or an "i" sound, you would

pronounce it like a "d", so for example, "play"

ends in a "y", so you'd say "played".

And then finally, if you see the "d", "g",

"e" together, like it's pronounced like "j",

"judge", then you would say "judged".

So, one way to do this is you can remember the consonants or the letters.

Another way to do this is to think about voicing.

So, here is my diagram again.

Now we're going to talk about voiced consonants.

So, a voiced consonant is a consonant, which

means it's not a vowel, it's not an "a", it's

not an "e", it's not an "i", it's not an "o", it's not a "u".

When we're talking about voiced consonants,

what we mean is that your voice box actually

vibrates, so it moves when you pronounce these sounds.

So what happens, here's our diagram, the air

goes up, but then this is the voice box or

the vocal cords, they move, they vibrate.

So then when the air hits them, it creates this "z" sound, this buzzing sound, and you

can feel it in your throat, and then the air

comes out the mouth and it's pronounced as

a voiced sound.

So, for example, if we do "l", "call", if you go "l", "l", you'll feel movement here.

If you do "n", "b", "r", "b", "m", "g", "z",

and if you do, like, "play", "a" sounds, or

"j", you'll feel the movement in here, so that's why we call it a voiced sound.

So "voiceless" is there's no vibration here,

"voiced" is there is vibration in your throat.

But again, if this is confusing, forget this

picture, and you can also just memorize the

letters, or the final sounds, which are "l", "n", "b",

"r", "v", "m", "g", "z", "y", "e", "i", and "d", "g", "e".

Okay?

So, we have covered a lot.

We've covered the three ways to pronounce "ed", "id", "d", and "t".

So, most importantly, there's three ways to pronounce "ed".

It depends on what the final letter is before

the "ed", how we pronounce it, and we can

use the blending method to really help us practice so we don't say, like, "loved", we

say "loved".

We don't say "called", we say "called".

So, practice that blending method with your

finger, and I think it will really help your

pronunciation.

So, thank you so much for watching today.

You can take my quiz at www.engvid.com to practice what you learned here.

There's a lot of information in this video,

it's really good information, but it's important

that you practice what you learned.

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And, again, thank you so much for watching.

Until next time, take care.