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That’s what I’m talking about. The Spanish t is almost like an unaspirated English th.
by leephillips 6y ago
That’s what I’m talking about. The Spanish t is almost like an unaspirated English th.
- DonaldPShimoda 6y agoAspiration is a separate phenomenon. English also has unaspirated plosives — they just mostly only occur in word-final positions, like the <t> in "pat", and they are not contrastive with their aspirated versions. What I was talking about was how the Spanish /t/ has the tip of the tongue just a bit further forward, so that it touches the back of your teeth. English /t/ is, for most people, purely alveolar, so there's no teeth contact.
- leephillips 6y agoAgreed. But some Spanish speakers pronounce t with the tongue quite far forward, between the teeth; that’s what I meant by comparing it to an unaspirated English th. But I think we are getting into regional variations now. It’s even more crucial with d. An English native speaker who is a beginner in Spanish will pronounce tened in a way that will be interpreted by Spanish speakers as tener.