How Americans Pronounce the NT Sound as an N (with Video)

By Justin | January 23, 2014

Do you think Americans speak too fast and cut their words? I’ll be the first to admit that it would appear that way.

One of the main reasons is because the way we really speak is a lot different than you learned in school, and there is no better example of this than the way Americans totally remove the “T” sound and pronounce “NT” as a flat “N” in words like “Internet,” “International,” and “Wanted.”

The omission of the “NT” sound, in addition to the American “T” Sound (pronouncing words like “Better” as “bedder”), are two of the most important American pronunciation rules and learning them will make an immediate impact on your listening comprehension and pronunciation.

Full Transcript

Awww yeah! Welcome to another episode of RealLife TV! Today I’m going to teach you how Americans remove the T sound from words like “internet” and “international,” so sit back and have fun!

RealLife TV Intro

So last week we talked about the American T and how we change the T in words like “better” to a D (“bedder”), and the word “later, (“lader”). Today, we’re gonna talk about how e change the INT or the NT in words like “wanted,” “internet,” “international” to “wanned,” and “innernational.”

The rule is that when you have the stressed syllable followed by the NT sequence

Like in words like wanted or internet the NT just becomes a flat N. So like “innernet,”“wanned.”

NT Sounds Examples & Exercise

So let’s go through some examples here. I’m going to give you a moment to repeat after I say it to make this an interactive exercise. So, to start out:

Internet = “innernet”
International = “innernational”
Wanted = “wanned”
Mental = “mennal”
Sentence = “sennance”
Advantage = “advannage”
Environmental = “environmennal”
Interaction = “inneraction”
Centimeter = “cennimeder”*
Center = “cenner”
Encounter = “encounner”
Dentist = “dennist”
Romantic = “romannic”
Plenty = “plenny”
Antibiotic = “annibiodik”*
Representative = “represenadive”*

* indicates the word uses also uses the American “T” to “D” sound (Flap “T”).

Removing the NT Sound When Pronouncing Gonna and Wanna

Okay, so now that you’ve had the chance to practice those, I’m gonna give you a couple of really common examples in the words “wanna” and “gonna,” which actually are a product of this rule.

So “want to” becomes the NT rule, “wanna,”“wanna,” and “going to,” the “G” is taken off when we pronounce it “goin.” “Going to” becomes “gonna,” “gonna.”

And now we’re gonna give you some examples, sentences, to give you a chance to use this.

More Practice: Combining NT words to Form Sentences

So, the first example:

“I wanted to take advantage of the internet to find a dentist”

Now slower: “I wanted to”, “ I wanted to take advantage of the internet to find a dentist”

“I wanted to take advantage of the internet to find a dentist”

The second example:

“There are plenty of international environmental representatives on the internet”

“There are plenty of international environmental representatives on the internet”

Together: “There are plenty of international environmental representatives on the internet”

Well I hope today’s lesson was helpful for you. I really enjoyed being here and teaching this lesson.

Thank you very much and take care. Bye bye.

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If you would like to check out more dynamic RealLife pronunciation lessons, I recommend the following articles:

Posted in Blog, Fluency Essentials, Pronunciation, Uncategorized