A common challenge for students learning English is the proper pronunciation of regular verbs in the past tense. There are three distinct variations, depending on the verb.
Instructor Julie Dean has taught English pronunciation at MLC for many years and has helped students to master this concept. In this post, Julie explains how to pronounce some regular verbs in the past. As you will see, the three different sounds are, “t”, “d”, and “ed”. We will focus on the “t” sound in this post.
Here are some examples:
looked – clapped – missed – watched – finished – laughed
It is important to note that these pronunciations are voiceless. That just means that we do not add an extra syllable when we say the verb in the past. For example, “look” sounds like “lookt” in the past, not “look-id”.
It is best to hear how this sounds though, so check out this short video of Julie demonstrating the pronunciation of these verbs:
We will talk about the remaining two sounds in an upcoming post. Until then, consider applying to MLC courses that focus specifically on pronunciation. We hope you are able to master this English pronunciation challenge for yourself!
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