2. When we have regular past-tense verbs, they typically end in “-ed”
There are 3 different sounds for “-ed”
But, how do you know which sound a word makes?
3. The final sound will largely depend on the last
sound of the verb.
* 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)
When we pronounce voiced sounds, our vocal chords vibrate when
we say those sounds. [v] [z].
When we pronounce voiceless sounds, our vocal chords do not
vibrate. [f] [s]. No vibration.
4. [t] final sound
Verbs ending in voiceless sounds [p, k, f, s, ʃ, tʃ] cause the “-ed”
ending to be pronounced as the voiceless [t] (with no vocal chord
vibration).
[p] “He popped a balloon.” [papt]
[k] “They talked a lot” [takt]
[f] “I laughed at the movie.” [læft]
[s] “She kissed her child good-bye.” [kIst]
[ʃ] “sh”: “We brushed our teeth.” [bruʃt]
[tʃ] “ch”: “I reached the end of the road.” [riytʃt]
5. [d] final sound
Verbs ending in the voiced sounds [b, g, v, z, ʒ, dʒ, m, n, ŋ, r, l] cause the “-
ed” ending to be pronounced as a voiced [d].
[b] “She grabbed her coat and ran away.” [grabd]
[g] “He begged her to stay.” [bɛgd]
[v] “They loved it.” [luvd]
[z] “He raised his hand.” [reyzd]
[dʒ] “They managed the issue quickly.” [ ]
[m] “She claimed the prize.” [kleymd]
[n] “They banned smoking in public spaces.” [bænd]
[ŋ] “She banged on the door.” [bæŋd]
[r] “The waitress cleared the table.” [kliyrd]
[l] “I rolled up the paper.” [rowld]
mænɪdʒd
6. [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] or [ɪd].
[t] “I visited the Empire State Building.” [vɪzɪtəd]
[t] “She edited the report.” [ɛdɪtɪd]
[d] “We ended the game early.” [ɛndɪd]
[d] “the chef breaded the chicken.” [brɛdɪd]
7. Why are these rules important?
Connected Speech [c+v]
These “-ed” pronunciation rules are particularly important,
because in English we connect our speech when we have a word
that:
• ends in a consonant; and
• is followed by a word that begins with a vowel.
In this case, the way you say the verb’s “-ed” ending will be heard loudly and
clearly.
“He walked away” [walkt] –> “He walk taway” [hiy WAWK
təWEY]
“She turned around.”
For Example:
Cont…
8. The same rule of connected speech [c+v] occurs when h-deletion causes
us to delete the “h” sound at the beginning of a word.
…Cont.
H- deletion
“We raised her expectations” [reyzd] –> “We raizd her expectations” –>
“We raizdər expectations”
