How to Link K to a Voiced Consonant American English Pronunciation
I’d like to answer a question I recently
received when I’m linking words I tend
to voice unvoiced consonants if they are
followed by a voiced consonant for
example I like that I say like my
question is is this right or not the
answer is no it is not correct to voice
the unvoiced consonant
however the consonant sound is one of
three consonant sounds the and all
unvoiced that does something different
when it’s linked to a voiced consonant
what these three sounds do when they are
followed by voiced consonants in a
linking situation is they act more as
stops then as consonants themselves the
sound is not fully pronounced voiced or
unvoiced so for example the question
that you posed I like that I like
everything in the mouth and tongue moves
into position for the K sound without
releasing air to make that case sound I
like that rather than releasing the air
the mouth simply forms the position then
for the th sound and goes into the next
word I like that the reason for that is
if there was a strong sound there would
be no way for it to link to the
following consonant sound I like that
and of course we know in American
English linking is very important I like
that
I’ve already done some blog entries on
this particular case with T but I will
just throw one more example out there
doesn’t this look nice
doesn’t the tongue moves into the T
position doesn’t this look nice doesn’t
this look nice without doesn’t making
that sharp T sound
the third unvoiced consonant for which
this is true is the P consonant sound so
when this sound is followed by and
linked to a voiced consonant flip the
mouth moves into the position without
releasing the air to complete the sound
flip that card flip that card this is an
excellent question and certainly
something to keep in mind as you
practice linking words