Reduction the word AT American English Pronunciation
In this American English pronunciation video,
we’re going to go over how to pronounce the
word AT in a sentence.
I love reductions.
As you probably know, there are lots of words
in American English that will sound different
in the context of a sentence then they do
on their own. AT is one of these words. On
its own, it has the AA as in BAT vowel and
the true T. At, at. But in a sentence, it
will often reduce to the schwa vowel. The
final T will either be a stop T or a flap
T depending on the next sound. If the next
sound is a consonant, then it will be a stop
T. If the next sound is a vowel or a diphthong,
then it will be a flap T. Let’s take a look
at some sentence fragments. First, at my,
at my. The word after the ‘at’ begins with
the M consonant. So the T here is a stop T.
At, at, at, at, at my, at my. At a, at a.
The sound after the word ‘at’ here is the
schwa sound, a vowel. So the ending T will
be a flap T. At a, at a, at a.
Now let’s look at some full sentences. I’ll
be at school. At, at, the word after the word
‘at’ here is ‘school’, beginning with a consonant,
so the T will be a stop T. At school, at school.
I’ll be at school.
Also, are you noticing how fast the word is?
As a function word, as a reduced word, it’s
very fast: at, at, at. This provides nice
rhythmic contrast in the sentence to the stressed
syllables. For example, at school, at school,
at school. They’re both one syllable, but
the word ‘at’, much quicker than the word
‘school’. At school.
I’ll be at her house. The next word, after
the word at, is the word ‘her’. But I’m dropping
the H to reduce that word, so the next sound
is actually the schwa sound. That means the
T will be a flap T. At her, at her, at her,
I’ll be at her house, I’ll be at her house.
I got it at the corner store. At the, at the.
So the word after the word ‘at’ begins with
a consonant, therefore the T is a stop T.
At the, at the. I got it at the corner store.
I’m going to be at Anna’s until 6. At Anna’s,
at Anna’s. The next word begins with a vowel
sound, so the T is a flap T. At Anna’s. I’m
going to be at Anna’s until 6. I’m busy at
the moment. At the, at the. Again, the next
word, ‘the’, begins with a consonant, so it’s
a stop T. At the, at the, I’m busy at the
moment.
I hope you’ll notice when native speakers
do this and start doing it yourself. Integrating
the reduced ‘at’ into your speech will help smooth
out the line, and also add some nice rhythmic
contrast to the longer, stressed syllables
in a sentence.
That’s it, and thanks so much
for using Rachel’s English.