British English pronunciation relies on a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. A key feature of Received Pronunciation (RP) is that sounds are aspirated from the front of the mouth. But what does this mean in practical terms?
The Trap of Trying Too Hard
I remember teaching the plosive sound /t/ to a Japanese student early in my career. For a native speaker, producing this sound feels effortless. Yet, this student found it incredibly frustrating.
The harder he tried to “make” the sound, the worse it sounded. By pushing too much air out, his speech started to sound aggressive and unnatural. It became clear that the more force he used, the worse the result was.
In physics, Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This principle is akin to the dynamics of the /t/ sound. The action, represented by He was focusing on the output, not the mechanism.
The Mechanics of a Plosive
To understand the solution, we need to break down what a /t/ sound actually is. It is a plosive and a stop consonant.
- Stop: You block the airflow completely.
- Plosive: You suddenly release the block.
The most important part of this process is the stop. You trap the air by holding your tongue in position against the roof of the mouth. This builds air pressure.
Applying Newton’s Third Law
In physics, Newton’s Third Law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This principle applies perfectly to pronunciation.
- The Action: The effort you put into trapping the air (the silence).
- The Reaction: The release of the air (the aspirated sound).
My student was trying to force the Reaction without doing the Action. He was trying to push air out without building the pressure first.
If you focus on the “Action”—holding the tongue firm and building the pressure—the “Reaction” happens automatically. When you release the tongue, the air escapes on its own. You don’t need to force it.
Once you realize that the power comes from the pause before the sound, native-like pronunciation becomes much easier.
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