ED ENDINGS 23 American English Accent Training PERFECT PRONUNCIATION

Tell me if this sounds like natural English. 
I watched my mom as she dragged the trash can  

to the curb. I wanted to help her. I exclaimed 
to her “you should have asked me. I would have  

helped you.” not quite. It’s not quite natural 
English and that’s because I followed all the  

rules for ED endings. Wait. If I followed 
all the rules, why didn’t I sound natural?  

Because Americans do all sorts of 
crazy things with the T and D sounds.
 

This is video two in our series on ED endings, 
regular past tense verbs. If you didn’t see video  

one, don’t worry, you’re going to be okay. We’re 
going to not just learn the pronunciation rules,  

but the pronunciation habits of Americans. So 
you can sound totally natural speaking in the  

past tense in American English. And remember, if 
you like this video, or you learned something new,  

please give it a thumbs up and subscribe 
with notifications. It helps a lot.
 

This is the second video and we’re going to dive 
deep into rule two. I’ll do a ten second recap  

of the rules. Rule one, if the sound at 
the end of the infinitive is unvoiced,  

ED is pronounced tt– walked. Rule two, 
if it’s voiced, the ED is pronounced dd–  

agreed. Seemed. Rule three, if that last sound is 
T or D, the ED ending is –ihd: needed, painted.  

Was that ten seconds or was it longer?

So rule two. The last sound in the infinitive is  

a voiced sound. What is a voiced sound? All vowels 
and diphthongs are voiced, and some consonants.  

First, we’ll talk about vowels and diphthongs. 
For example, the word agree ends in the ee vowel,  

agree, past tense would be agreed, with the D 
sound. Agreed. Now, you probably learned that  

D is pronounced dd– a stop of air, voicing 
the vocal chords, ddd— dd– dd– and then a  

release. Agreed. But we actually have a couple of 
different pronunciations that we’ll use for these  

rule 2 ED endings. Let’s look at the phrase 
I agreed it would be a good idea. Agreed it,  

agreed it, agreed di di di dih– agreed it–

That’s a flap of the tongue, it’s not a stop of  

air, it’s actually just like the flap T, if you’re 
familiar with that sound, the D between vowel or  

diphthong sounds is a quick single flap of the 
tongue against the roof of the mouth. Agreed it,  

agreed it, dadadadaa– agreed it.

So anytime with these ED endings  

that you have the sounds of a vowel or 
diphthong, D, and then a vowel or diphthong,  

it’s a flap. Agreed it. Lied about. Lied 
ah– lied about, lied about, lied about.
 

What if the next word doesn’t 
begin with a vowel or diphthong,  

but rather a consonant? Let’s take a look at 
the example agreed with– I agreed with you.  

I agreed with you. It’s not a fully pronounced 
D because there’s no release. That would be  

this: I agreed with you. I agreed with you. Agreed 
with. Agreed with. We don’t do that. We don’t do  

that release when the next word begins with a 
consonant. We make the noise in the vocal cords,  

but we don’t release it. We go right into 
the next sound, in this case, w. Agreed  

with, agreed with, agreed–
 

It’s the sound but there’s not a stop and release. 
We just carry that voiced D right into the w.  

Agreed with. Agreed with. We like to make English 
really smooth and that’s why in these cases,  

stop consonants are not fully pronounced. 
Let’s look at a few more examples where we  

have a vowel or diphthong, then the D, and 
then the next word begins with a consonant.
 

He sued the company.

Sued the, sued the.  

Do you hear that D in the vocal cords? He 
sued the company. Plowed through. Plowed.  

Plowed through. Weighed my options. Weighed 
my, weighed my, weighed my options.
 

Now let’s look at a few more examples, you 
tell me how the ED ending should be pronounced:  

flapped or unreleased? The next word begins 
with a consonant sound so this D is unreleased.  

Toyed with. Toyed with. Toyed with.
Let’s go to Youglish for an example.

Toyed with– can you say that now really easily 
with that unreleased D sound? Toyed with–  

toyed with– what about this one? 
Is the D flapped or unreleased?  

Reviewed a– reviewed a– that’s usually going to 
be a flap because the D comes between two vowel  

or diphthong sounds. Reviewed a– reviewed 
a– let’s go to youglish for an example.
 

One more. What about this one? Booed by– the next 
word begins with a consonant, so that will be an  

unreleased D. Booed by– vibrating the vocal 
chords, making the D sound but not releasing.  

Booed by– let’s look at an example.

So for rule two, we looked at vowel and  

diphthongs, plus ed. What about all the consonants 
that are voiced? That’s still rule two. And things  

start to get a little more complicated. We’ll 
look at each of these voiced consonant endings.  

Let’s start with R like in the word 
fired. He was fired last week. Fired  

last, fired last, not dd– a release, that 
would be fired last, fired last, but it’s: fired  

last, that unreleased D sound in the 
vocal cords before the next consonant.
 

If the next word begins with a vowel or diphthong, 
the D will be flapped, but only because of the R,  

the rule for flapping is a D or T will be flapped 
between two sounds that are vowels and diphthongs,  

or if the first sound, the sound before is an 
R and the sound after is a vowel or diphthong,  

like in the word party, or hardy. Those are both 
flaps because of the R, DT, vowel or diphthong  

pattern. Party. Hardy. So when we have an ending 
R infinitive, plus the D sound, plus the word that  

begins with the vowel or diphthong, that D will be 
flapped. It’s not like this for any of these other  

voiced consonants. It’s just because of the R. He 
was fired on monday. Fired on– rarara– single  

flap of the tongue. Fired on. And I should say for 
any of these rule two words, if the next word is  

you or your, a native speaker might turn that 
D into a J sound. We do this with any word that  

ends in a D when the next word begins with you or 
your, like in the phrase: would you– would jjjj–  

J sound. Would you. Would you do that for me?

Jj– jj– so all of these words in rule 2  

do end in a D sound therefore, you 
might hear this happen. Let’s take:  

fired you, fired you, as an example, fired you.

Fired you, fired you, jj– with that J sound. How  

about g? Another voiced consonant like in the 
word beg, begged. She begged all the time. When  

the next word begins with a vowel or diphthong, 
you will release that D into the next word: begged  

all the time, dall– dall– dall– begged all– 
begged all the time. But when the next sound is  

a consonant, it gets more complicated. Honestly, 
there are three ways you might hear it: first,  

dropped. I begged for a dog when I was a little 
kid. Begged for, begged for. I dropped it there.  

Or you might hear that unreleased D sound in 
the vocal cords. I begged for a dog. Begged  

for a dog. Begged for a dog. Or you might 
even hear a light release. I begged for a dog.  

Begged ddd– light release. I begged for a dog. 
Let me show you what I mean. We’ll go to Youglish.  

Now in this one, I hear the D in the vocal cords, 
but not released. Begged for, begged for.

In this next one, I don’t really 
hear any D. I think it’s dropped.
 

And now an example where 
the D is lightly released.
 

Like I said in my rule one video, try not to 
get stressed out about there being more than one  

option if it’s easier for you to always lightly 
release your D, that’s okay. As you get more used  

to English, and you’re around a lot of native 
speakers, or if you’re doing a lot of imitating,  

you may find that you start dropping the D 
sound more naturally. What we’re doing here  

is looking at all the different possibilities and 
pronunciations of what you’ll hear when speaking  

with American. When a word ends in the J sound, 
like in change, I just listened to a bunch of  

examples of changed. Let’s listen to a few.

So all those had the released D. Changed. But  

it can definitely be dropped too. Let’s 
look at a common phrase: changed my mind.  

Changed my. It’s fairly common to drop the 
ED ending there. The more common a phrase is,  

the more likely we’ll do some sort of reduction 
there. And that’s what I found often happens here.  

I changed my mind, becomes: I change my mind. I 
listened to a lot of phrases and the D was almost  

always dropped. So it just sounds like the 
present tense. Change my mind. Even though  

it’s past tense. Here are some examples.

Changed my mind. When I listened in  

slow motion, I don’t hear any kind of D.

Here are a few more with that dropped D.

What about a word where the last 
sound in the infinitive is the L  

like in the word drill? When it’s followed by 
a word that begins with a vowel or diphthong,  

release the D into that word to link it. Drilled 
into, drilled into. Let’s look at some examples  

where the next word begins with a consonant.

Drilled to–  

the D made in the vocal cords, drilled to–, it’s 
not released we just go right into the T sound. If  

I released it it would be: drilled to, drilled to, 
but it’s drilled to, drilled to. Listen again.

Another example.

Drilled but,  

drilled but. I did hear the D released lightly. 
Drilled but. This next one was tricky for me.  

I had to really slow it down to hear if there is 
an unreleased D or not, I think there is.

The most common pronunciation I was hearing 
in various situations was an unreleased D.  

Now we’ll cover our three nasal consonants: 
M, N, and NG. For M, we’ll look at the word  

bummed. That means disappointed. We often use 
it without. I’m so bummed out. Now in that case,  

because the next word begins with the diphthong, 
we link with the D –dout, –dout, bummed out–  

bummed out– i’m so bummed out. 
Let’s listen to an example of  

that one.

–dout,  

–dout, bummed out–
Now we’ll hear two examples where  

bummed is followed by a consonant. First, it’s 
dropped, and that’s more common, and then you’ll  

hear it where it’s released.

Bummed that–  

I didn’t hear that D at all. That 
D was dropped. Here it’s released.
 

Bummed for, bummed for, ddd–  

a light release of the D. You know, I haven’t 
been talking about much when these ED ending  

words are at the end of a thought group. 
There, it will usually be a light release.  

Let’s look at an example.

Bummed. Light release. That’s a fun word,  

isn’t it? I’m feeling bummed. I’m kind of bummed 
out. Or you can use it as a noun. It’s a bummer.  

Oh, shoot! My favorite restaurant is closed 
today. I wanted to eat there. That’s a bummer.
 

N. N is kind of special. N can make a T silent. 
Do you know this rule when T comes after an n,  

it’s not uncommon to drop that T like in 
the word internet or interview. When D  

comes after an N and before another consonant, 
it’s pretty common to drop like in grand piano so  

it’s really common to drop the D sound in these 
ED endings when the sound in the infinitive,  

the final sound, was N and the next word 
begins with a consonant. Let’s look at several examples.

These are all with the word signed.

All with a dropped D. Now we’ll look at drained.  

Also all dropped d’s here.

and as always, when the next 
word begins with the vowel or diphthong,  

we’ll use the released D to 
link in, like in this example:

Signed into– into dadadadada– with that D sound 
linking. At the end of a sentence, we’ll probably  

release that D. What about NG? Well we don’t have 
many words here. A lot of those NG ending verbs  

are not regular like: ring, rang, sing, sang, 
but we do have the word long, longed. The noun is  

longing and this means to yearn for, to have 
a strong desire for. I longed for my mother’s  

attention. Or I longed for my newborn baby when 
I was at work. Or I longed to be taken seriously.  

This is often followed by for, which 
of course begins with a consonant.  

The ED ending can be dropped, but also this is 
an emotional word and it will sometimes be more  

stressed. I longed for acceptance. And in these 
cases, the D will probably be lightly released.  

We’ll hear two examples. First, where 
it’s dropped and then when it’s not.
 

Let’s move on to the voiced th. This is another 
sound that’s not very common in ED ending words  

we have: smoothed, bathed. These words will most 
often be followed by a word that begins with a  

vowel like ‘smoothed out’ or ‘smoothed over’ 
or ‘bathed in’. We’ll lightly release the D  

into that next sound. But when the next sound 
is a consonant, it’s much easier to drop the  

ED ending to connect. Here are three examples 
dropping the ED ending with the word smoothed.
 

The v sound like in: moved his car, moved 
his, moved his, there I dropped the h in his,  

that’s a common reduction, and so the D linked 
into the ih sound because that’s a vowel.  

Moved his dis dis, I moved his car. At the end 
of a sentence, we’ll probably release that D.  

He moved. He moved. But when the next sound 
is a consonant, you’ll hear both dropped and  

lightly released. Here are two examples. 
In the first, the D is released. Moved me.  

In the second example, it’s dropped.

Words were the infinitive ends in z like  

buzzed, the rules are the same. Release D into 
a vowel or diphthong like in: buzzed about.
 

‘Buzzed about’ means really talked about, 
there’s a lot of interest about something.  

At the end of a thought group, it 
will likely be released like here.

And when the next word begins with a consonant, 
you’ll have either dropped or lightly released  

ending, here’s an example where it’s released

And where the ED ending is completely dropped.

We have one more sound here for rule two, and 
it’s the ZH sound. It’s not at all common to have  

a verb that ends with ZH plus ED but we do have 
barraged. Barraged means to bombard. Aggressively  

throw something at someone. And it might not 
mean physically throw, you can barrage someone  

with words, or someone can feel barraged with 
emails, they just keep getting too many emails,  

they can’t keep up. This word is usually 
followed by with or by, but you might hear  

‘barraged us’ followed by a vowel so you’ll link 
with the D. They barraged us with phone calls.  

Dus dus dus, barraged us, barraged us. At 
the end of a sentence, I’ll lightly release  

it. I was completely barraged. But followed 
by a consonant, it will likely be dropped.

Or lightly released.

Whew!  

That is a lot for rule 2, isn’t it? The 
pronunciations of the ED ending depend on the  

sounds before and after. And the more you study 
and watch examples on Youglish or Ted talks, the  

more you’ll get used to how Americans pronounce 
the ED endings, and you’ll be able to smooth out  

your own speech and sound natural. Now let’s have 
you train with some of these rule two cases with  

a dropped D to make that feel more comfortable 
for you. First, you’ll hear a phrase then you’ll  

hear just the two-word link in slow motion twice, 
three times, repeat the third time, it’s important  

to not just learn something but to actually train 
it, to speak out loud, to get used to it.

I did not expect rule 2 to take this long. We’re 
going to save rule 3 for another video coming  

out in a few weeks. While you wait for that 
next video, be sure to check out this video.  

Also check out my online courses at Rachel’s 
English academy. You’ll become a more confident  

English speaker. I make new videos every Tuesday. 
Be sure to come back next week to watch more.  

I love being your English teacher. That’s it 
and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.