The Most DIFFICULT Sound in American English

Oh great! I have a few minutes,  

I'm gonna see who I can meet on the  RealLife App for a quick conversation.

Hey how's it going? Hi! Nice to meet you. 

Oh! That's some cool posters you got there. 

Yeah, I love Tim Burton's movies.  Are you a fan of Tim Burton?

Sorry, who?

Yeah! Tim Burton, the director.

Oh Tim Burton.

Yeah! Tim Burton.

Listen to these names. They're all  pronounced with the same sound.  

Let's see if you can identify what that sound is.

Your host for this evening, Steve Martin.  

Please welcome James Patterson and president  Bill Clinton. Please say hello to Michael Keaton.

Notice that the names Martin, Clinton  and Keaton all have something in common,  

it's this t vowel n combination at the end. In  fact it's one of the most difficult sounds in  

American English. Most languages don't have  a sound like this, so many learners cannot  

even perceive it when they hear it. Let's take  the name Keaton for example. Now if a British  

person were to say this, they would say... probably you might also hear someone say... 

But in most American English accents we will  make this sound that you observed before: 

Now if this seems pretty difficult, don't  worry, there's just three simple steps that  

you need to follow to effectively make the sound.  So first of all, we're going to remove the vowel  

between the t and n. So pretend that it wasn't  even there. So what happens next is that the t  

sound is not released. What do I mean by this?  Normally when we make a t sound our tongue goes  

up and then it flicks down in order to release the  air and make that burst of the ts. However when we  

make this noise what we do is we simply don't let  our tongue drop so that the tongue stays up and it  

blocks the air. This is also called a stop t. Alright so what we get is... 

See that my tongue stays up? Many  Americans, myself included, often  

get so good at making the sound in  the back of our throat that we can  

just keep our tongue down altogether.  So I could also say this by doing... 

see my tongue doesn't even need to  go up at that point. But for you  

and trying to start to make the sound you might  want to try it with your tongue up like that. 

Next, step 2.5 subscribe to our channel. Okay, I'm  just kidding. But I'm kind of not because if you,  

like many learners out there, are feeling lost  and insecure you're not sure what to do next  

and what you really want to be is natural  and confident when you speak English,  

well you found exactly the right channel to do  that. So why don't you join over 300 000 learners  

around the world who are discovering a more fun  and effective way to learn English by hitting  

that subscribe button and the bell down below  and that way you won't miss a single new lesson  

like this one. And finally we can move on to step  three, which is after we have kept our tongue up  

so we're not releasing the air and we're able to  create that stop t. What's going to happen then is  

when we make that n sound, we're forcing the air  to actually pass through our nose so it becomes...

I'm making that n sound by letting the air  pass through my nose. So why don't you try?

Now, it doesn't really matter if you have  one vowel or two vowels between that t  

and n sound. Even if we have two, we'll  usually cut them both out. Let's take  

for example the word mountain. Now that's  probably how you would usually say it right: 

With that full t sound. But if you  want to produce it with this sound  

or you want to understand how  most Americans would say it,  

then we need to use that stop t sound  again. Right, so watch me say it.

Now you try.

All right! Now let's practice with some more.  Don't worry about the meaning of these words.  

In fact, you could even close your eyes and just  listen to how i'm saying them so that you're not  

depending too much on the visuals, of being used  to reading and maybe trying to reproduce it like  

you would in your native language. Just really try  to listen in to the sound and how i'm saying them.

And, of course, you also need to  be used to hearing these in full  

sentences. So let's practice  with some example sentences.

And, you know, when you learn something new  like this, so that you can remember it and so  

that you can start doing it effectively,  it's not enough just to watch a video,  

because your brain doesn't work that way. You  have to actually put it into practice. But many  

learners have told me that they just don't have  anyone to practice their English with. So we  

decided to go ahead and solve that by creating  the RealLife App for you. Let's take a look at  

what one of our app users Shirley said about it. And just like Shirley you can have absolutely  

fascinating conversations with people from all  around the world about your passions, about  

your hobbies and you can put into practice this  advanced pronunciation tactic that you're learning  

today. Or one of the best ways to learn is by  teaching it, so why not go on the app and teach  

someone else how to make this sound? And a lot of  you tell me that you just don't have much money  

to invest in your English learning. So we've made  this a free resource that you can use to improve  

your English speaking, so give it a go. You can  download it now by clicking up here or down the  

description below or you can simply search for  RealLife English in your favorite app store.

What did he say?!

All right, again, depending on the region where  you're at and the accent that's used there,  

you can also find the sound occur in words that  end with an nt contraction. Now this would often  

happen in the negative form of auxiliary verbs  like wouldn't, couldn't or didn't. So in these  

words before the nt we have a d. Now commonly in  American English we would pronounce this d as an  

American d. Which is a quick flick of the tongue.  It's very similar to the r in Latin languages like  

Spanish and Portuguese. So I could say it's like: However you might also find that some people  

pronounce this with the sound that we've been  working on today by making that d into a stop  

consonant. So if we do that that's going to change  the sound a little bit. So instead we will have: 

All right, so now practice  with me with some sentences:

All right so now that you know about the sound,  you will certainly be able to better understand  

native speakers when you're listening to your  favorite tv series or even when you get into a  

conversation. Now it is important to note that  you do not need to speak like this, you can, if  

you want, you can put in the hard effort to really  learn to produce that sound in an effortless way  

and that's great if that's your goal. But it is  a lot of work so what's really important though  

is that you are able to identify and understand  it when you are listening to native speakers.  

And I want to hear from you: What sounds do  you find are the most difficult in English  

to produce or to understand when you hear them?  Why don't you let us know down in the comments  

below and that way we can make a lesson for you  explaining it just like we have today? Aw yeah. 

All right this lesson would not be  complete without testing everything  

that you've learned today. So today's  test will have two parts. Let's start off  

by testing your listening. How well were you  listening in today's lesson? So what you're  

going to do is you're going to listen closely  to me saying some sentences, however we're not  

going to show the full sentence on screen.  You're going to have to fill in the blanks,  

each of these blanks will be filled with one word  that has the sound that we have been practicing  

today. And of course you can pause and repeat  after me if you want to. All right, you ready?

All right. How'd you do? Are you ready for  part two of the test? Okay, so now we're going  

to test your speaking. So we will show you five  sentences and you need to do your best to say it  

with that sound. Then you'll hear me say  the sentence and you can compare how you did  

compared to how I said it. For extra points, you  could also record yourself so you can actually  

play back yourself saying it next to mine  and that will give you a better comparison.

Nice work! So out of the 15 questions, how many  did you get? Why don't you share your score with  

other learners down in the comments below? So  aside from improving your pronunciation and  

your listening skills, another super important  aspect of getting advanced English speaking  

is being able to increase your vocabulary.  Now what if I told you that you could learn  

a thousand or more words by just learning one  simple trick? Well, you can! If you're curious,  

then you should definitely check out this  lesson next. Let's watch a clip from that.