(Video Transcript)
The Truth About American English Consonants: Final Consonant Devoicing
Hey everyone! We’re going to get right into it today - so I hope you’re ready.
Let’s start this video with a listening quiz. What is the final sound that you hear me say at the end of these words:
Second
Around
Sound
Find
Demand
Did you hear a final D consonant, /d/, or a final T consonant, /t/? Or something in between a D and a T?
I’ll say those words again. Listen carefully.
So here’s what I said:
Second
Around
Sound
Find
Demand
You’ll notice that all of these words follow the same pattern. They all end with the N and D consonants, with D being in the final position.
Something strange happens to the D consonant in these words, and this strange thing happens in lots of other words, too. The D consonant is kind of pronounced like a T consonant.
And in my experience, no one really talks about this strange thing. I haven’t seen many accent coaches out there who teach this pronunciation phenomenon to their students.
But today, this strange thing - when a D consonant loses its voicing and is pronounced more like a T consonant - is exactly what you’re going to learn in this video.
Final Consonant Devoicing
In case this is the first time you’ve watched one of my pronunciation videos, let me welcome you to my channel and introduce myself. I’m Julie, a professional American accent and voice coach, and I’ve been helping people, just like you, to improve their English pronunciation and public speaking skills since two thousand seven. And today, you’re going to learn about an advanced area of American English pronunciation called final consonant devoicing. This is when a voiced consonant loses its voicing when it's in the final position of a word.
This happens in the words I said earlier:
Second vs. second
Sound vs. sound
The final D consonant lost some or all of its voicing, and sounded a little bit more like a T consonant.
It’s not
Second
or
Sound
It’s:
Second
Sound
Now the million dollar question is: Why does this happen? And how do you know when to use this pronunciation rule? Because you won’t see this in the IPA transcription of a word - you won’t see that the D lost some of its voicing. Instead, you’ll see the /d/ symbol transcribed, just like you do in this Cambridge Dictionary entry for the word second:
And this devoicing doesn’t just occur when a word ends in N and D; it happens in lots of other words, too. So for the remainder of this video lesson, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know about final consonant voicing in English, and we’ll start with the basics.
Voiced Consonants in American English
Consonant voicing is when a consonant sound, such as the D, M, or B consonants, are pronounced with vocal cord vibration. That’s when your vocal cords vibrate, or make a sound, and you can feel that happen in your throat.
D, M, B
I feel a vibration in my throat. That vibration is from my vocal cords.
English has fifteen voiced consonant sounds:
B as in boy
D as in dog
G as in good
J as in July
L as in light
M as in Mom
N as in never
NG as in sing
R as in rain
TH as in this
ZH as in treasure
V as in very
W as in wheel
Y as in yes
And Z as in zoo
But when these consonants occur at the end of a word or at the end of a syllable, strange things can and do happen to the voicing.
Sometimes you pronounce all of the voicing. For example, the ZH consonant in the word “treasure” is always pronounced with one hundred percent of its voicing.
Treasure
Treasssure
Sometimes you pronounce just a little bit of the voicing. For example, the final Z in the word “please” is often pronounced with maybe fifty percent of the voicing at the beginning and then the remaining fifty percent is pronounced without voicing, so closer to an S consonant.
Please
And sometimes you drop all of the voicing. For example, the final V in the word “have” is almost always pronounced like an F consonant, so without any voicing, in the phrase “have to”.
Have to
Have to
Not
Have to
For the remainder of this video, I’m going to dive deep into the world of final consonant voicing and devoicing, and I’ll give you the rules and the exceptions to those rules, plus a bunch of example words and phrases to help solidify your learning.
So, don’t be afraid to take notes because I’m about to get technical here. I’ll begin with a discussion of two rules of final consonant voicing, and then I’ll discuss the exceptions to those rules.
Rule #1: Vowel Length and Final Consonant Voicing
Rule number one of final consonant voicing. This rule involves the length of vowels when they come before voiced consonants and voiceless consonants.
I’ve discussed this vowel length rule in a previous video, and I’ve linked to that video in the description below. So if you want more help with vowel length, please check out that video.
The rule is this:
Vowels that come before voiced consonants are typically pronounced with a longer duration than vowels that come before voiceless consonants.
Listen to these words as examples. Can you hear the slight difference in the length of the vowel?
Belief
Believe
Safe
Save
Advice
Advise
You should hear that the vowels that come before the voiced consonants are held out for a little bit of a longer duration than the vowels that come before the voiceless consonants.
This rule of vowel length is extremely important in American English pronunciation. If you struggle with pronouncing the voicing of the final V in “believe” for example, and people consistently hear you say “belief” instead, then focus on the vowel length. Hold out the EE /i/ vowel in “believe” for just a fraction longer, and people will hear the right word.
The second rule about vowel length is this:
Final voiceless fricative consonants, like S, F, SH, and TH, are typically held out longer than final voiced fricative consonants, like Z, V, ZH, and TH.
Now listen for that final consonant. You should hear that the voiceless fricative consonants are held out for a slightly longer duration than the voiced fricative consonants.
Belief
Believe
Safe
Save
Advice
Advise
So you have two rules here:
Longer vowel plus a shorter voiced consonant (especially for fricatives).
Shorter vowel plus a longer voiceless consonant (especially for fricatives).
Rule #2: Final Consonant Cluster Voicing
Rule number two of final consonant voicing. These vowel length rules still apply when a word ends in a consonant cluster, which is when you have two or more consonants next to each other in the same syllable.
So the AA vowel in the word “cats” is shorter in duration compared to the AH vowel in the word “dogs” because the /ts/ ending in “cats” is voiceless, and the /gz/ ending in “dogs” is voiced.
The same thing happens in the words “missed” and “whizzed”, where the IH vowel in “missed” is shorter in duration because it comes before the /st/ cluster, and the IH vowel in the word “whizzed” is longer in duration because it comes before the /zd/ cluster.
Cats
Dogs
Missed
Whizzed
You’ll notice in these examples, the consonant clusters either include a final letter “s” or the past tense “ed” ending. Now, I don’t have time in this video to review the pronunciation rules of the final S and the final ED ending in English - but I have gone over those rules at length in other videos, and I’ve linked to those videos in the description below. If you struggle with knowing how to pronounce the final S or the final ED ending in English, then please check out those videos.
So far, I’ve discussed two main rules of final consonant voicing, and both of those main rules said that whenever you see a voiced consonant transcribed in the IPA, then you pronounce it with voicing. Sounds pretty easy, right?
Well, now let’s move on to when you break that voicing rule, or in other words, when the final voiced consonant actually loses its voicing in the pronunciation. And remember - you most likely won’t see this in the IPA transcription of a word. But native speakers will pronounce that final voiced consonant as something closer to a voiceless consonant.
So this next part in the video is VERY IMPORTANT. You’ll only learn about this pronunciation phenomenon in this video - so listen carefully and take notes. I’ll teach you three examples in which the final voiced consonant actually loses some or all of its voicing in its pronunciation:
Exception #1: Final Voiced Fricatives and Affricates
Number one: In any word that ends with a voiced fricative consonant or a voiced affricate consonant, like
Please
Massage
and
judge
the voicing usually drops from the last fifty percent of the final voiced sound. We’ll talk about what happens when you link that word to another word next, but for now, just remember that any word that ends in a voiced fricative or affricate consonant can lose maybe half of its voicing on that final sound.
So the word
Please
Isn’t pronounced as
“Pleezzzzz” with full voicing of the final /z/ consonant.
You can pronounce it that way. A native speaker can always say
“Pleeezzz” with a fully voiced final /z/ sound, but that’s not typically what happens in regular speech.
That final consonant, though voiced and the IPA would also show that it’s voiced, will lose a lot of its voicing at the end. The first part of the consonant will maintain some voicing, but it’s in the final portion of the consonant where the voicing is dropped.
But remember that vowel length rule that says vowels before voiced consonants are pronounced with a slightly longer duration? That rule still applies. So you still pronounce the proceeding vowel with a slightly longer duration because a voiced consonant still technically comes next. Okay - don’t forget that part! Always maintain that vowel length rule!
Exception #2: Linking Final Voiced Fricatives and Affricates
Number two: The voicing of a final voiced fricative or affricate consonant typically drops when linking to a voiceless consonant. This is called voicing assimilation, and it’s quite common in American English pronunciation.
Let’s look at the example phrase “please say”. Here you have a final /z/ in “please” linking to an /s/ in “say”. The /z/ is voiced, and the /s/ is voiceless. What typically happens is the second consonant, the /s/ in this example, influences the voicing of the first consonant, the /z/ in this example, causing the /z/ to drop most or all of its voicing to become more similar to the /s/.
So the phrase “please say” is pronounced like:
Please say
With voicing on maybe the first twenty five percent of the /z/ consonant, then the last seventy five percent is voiceless and becomes the /s/ consonant.
So, in summary, you have a longer EE /i/ vowel and a little bit of voicing at the beginning of /z/, then the voicing drops out and the /z/ becomes an /s/ as you link it to “say”.
Here’s another phrase where the voicing drops out entirely.
The phrase “have to” is almost always pronounced like:
“Half” to
The final /v/ in “have” loses all of its voicing when it links up to the voiceless /t/ in “to”.
“Half” to
Not
Have to
Exception #3: Final Consonant Clusters
Number three: When a word ends with a consonant cluster where the final sound is voiced, the voicing may be dropped or reduced in the final consonant. This is especially true when the consonant cluster includes a nasal sound plus a final D consonant, like the word:
Hand
You might have just the tiniest bit of voicing at the beginning of the D, but because of the way the N and D are articulated - they’re both alveolar sounds, so the tongue placement is the same for both of them - the nasal consonant is pronounced normally, then the tongue makes a quick little D, then drops from the alveolar ridge without any voicing at the end.
This happens in the words I said at the beginning of this video, which all contained the ND consonant cluster, but you’ll also hear this drop in voicing in other types of consonant clusters. Here are a few more examples. Listen carefully to the final sound.
closed
involved
bags
Okay you guys - this video was dense, so please go back and watch it again if you need to. I discussed an area of American English pronunciation that’s pretty advanced - the devoicing of final voiced consonants in English - and if this was your first time learning about voicing and devoicing and consonants…well, I know this was probably overwhelming.
Improve Your English Pronunciation with San Diego Voice and Accent
If you need more help with your pronunciation of final voiced consonants in English, then I’d be happy to work with you in English Pro, my online accent training program. You’ll receive training in all areas of the American accent, including final consonant devoicing and linking, plus you can attend weekly live English classes and work with me, one-to-one, in the class. Check out the description for links to learn more about English Pro.
Don’t forget that I also have a free Sounds of American English Guidebook, where you’ll learn how to pronounce every sound of American English with audio recordings, pictures, MRIs, IPA charts, and more. It’s a fantastic, free resource that will really help boost your American English pronunciation skills, so check out the links in the description below.
Thanks for watching everyone! If you found this video helpful, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel for more pronunciation tips. That’s a fantastic, no-cost way that you can show your support and let me know that you liked this video and want me to make more just like it. You can also leave a comment below to let me know what techniques have helped you with your pronunciation of final consonants, and I'll make sure to cover them in future videos.
Keep practicing, and I’ll see you next time.
