My name is Emma, and today we aregoing to talk about "ed" pronunciations.
So, "ed" is used in Englishto show the past tense.
We add it to a verb tomake it a past tense verb.
So, for example, "Yesterday", sothis is the past, "I talked to my friend."
"Talked" with "ed" is a verb, and it's beenput into the past tense; that's why there's
Well, the problem is Imeet many people who are
learning English or whohave learned English.
Some people even havebeen studying English
for years, but theyoften make mistakes with
the pronunciation of "ed".
This is one of the mostcommon things I see.
So, for example, I'llhear people say "talk-ed";
"Oh, yesterday Italk-ed to my friend."
Now, if you listen tohow I say it, "Yesterday
I talked to my friend",there's a difference
So, today I'm going toteach you how to pronounce
"ed", and I'm alsogoing to teach you a very
special way to helpprevent these mistakes.
I find this really helps studentslearn how to pronounce "ed" correctly.
So, if you know that,you know, there's different
ways to pronounce"ed", you've studied this
before, there's something thatI can teach you still about "ed".
And if this is new foryou, if you don't know
about "ed" pronunciations,I have a lot to
So, to get started, Ihave this question.
How many ways do wepronounce "ed" in English?
Okay, so there are three -that's right, one, two, three.
Three ways topronounce "ed" in English.
We have - so, thisrepresents pronunciation.
This means "id", sosome past tense words,
like "wanted", "visited",they have this "id"
"Some ed" just is a "t"sound, so a "t" sound, "t".
So, for example, "watched",and then we also have this "d".
Some "ed"s sound like a "d" sound,so for example, "planned", "planned".
So, I'll go over each of these areas in amoment, and we'll look at a lot of common
examples for "id","t", and "d", but first I
want you to warm upyour ears and get ready
I have here - one,two, three, four, five, six
- six verbs, they'reall in the past tense,
I will say the verb, and I want youto choose, is it an "id", "t", or "d"?
How am I pronouncing the "ed"?
The first step to learning"ed" pronunciations is
to get used to listeningfor "ed" pronunciations.
So, let's start with the firstone, "wanted", "wanted".
Okay, what about thenext one, "talked", "talked".
It's the "t" sound, "talked",and I'll explain why in a moment.
Okay, so this is alittle bit harder, I think,
because you mightthink it's this, you might
When I say "called",it's actually the "d" sound.
So, and notice I'm notsaying "talked", "called",
that's what a lot ofpeople who are learning
English say, but the correctpronunciation is "talked", "called".
Okay, what about thisone, "watched", "watched".
Okay, so this is actuallythe "t" sound, "watched".
This has the "id"sound, "decided".
Let's look at the last one,"opened", "opened", "opened".
Okay, I find that usuallythe ones that have the
"d" sound are sometimesharder for listening,
but yes, this oneactually has the "d" sound.
So this might have been difficultfor you, and that's completely okay.
It takes time to learn tolisten for the pronunciations,
as well as to say thepronunciations of "ed"
Now, what we are goingto do is we are going
to first cover "id",that's the easiest one,
then we'll look at "t"and "d" and we'll learn
when do we pronounce"ed" as an "id", a "t"
Okay, so I have here some common verbs thathave the "id" sound when we use "ed" with
them.
So, I want to first say that "id" is likeits own syllable, so you'll see what I mean
You heard "id", this parthas two parts, "want",
"id", okay, "needed","decided", "started",
"invited", "weighted", "ended","painted", "hated", "protected".
So this is probably the "ed"you're used to pronouncing.
This is usually the "ed" soundpeople don't have much problems with.
The problem is the "t" andthe "d", which we'll get to later.
But, when do wepronounce "ed" like this?
Well, it depends on thesound before the "ed".
If we have a "t" sound or a "d" soundbefore the "ed", we pronounce it like "id".
So, for example, here we have a "t", "d","d", "t", "t", "t", "d", "t", "t", "t".
So, if you have averb ending with a "t"
sound or a "d" sound,pronounce it like "id".
Now let's get to "t" and "d"and my blending technique.
Okay, so the next pronunciation for "ed" wewill talk about is the "t" pronunciation.
So "ed" can be pronouncedlike a "t" or a "t" sound.
So, I'll explain when thishappens in a moment,
but first, let's lookat some of the most
common verbs that youwould use the "t" sound
for, and then I'll teachyou my technique
on how to pronouncethese properly.
So, we have "helped","liked", "watched",
"talked", "kissed","hoped", "missed", "danced".
So notice I did not say "helped", "liked","watched", "talked", "kissed"; no, I just
So, if you're having troublewith this pronunciation,
what you can do isyou can take your finger,
you write down the word you wantto practice, so for example, "help".
So if I wanted to practice "helped", what Iwould do is I would write down "help" and
I would write down the "t".
And then with my finger, I would start toslowly say both, "help", "t", "help", "t",
so I want you to do that whenI point, "help", "t", "help", "t".
So we have the twosounds, "help" and "t",
now what we want todo is bring them together.
So what you can doto practice, of course
you're not going todo this in conversation,
but this is a good wayto practice these words
beforehand, is youtake your finger and you
just move it whileyou pronounce it.
So watch this, "help","t", "help", "t", "help",
"t", and then what Ican start doing is moving
my finger a little bit faster,"helped", "helped", "helped", okay.
So I want you to trythis because I think it
really can help you withyour "ed" pronunciation
We have here a verycommon verb, "like", so
when "like" has an"ed" on it, we can do the
So on a piece ofpaper I would write "like"
and I would write a "t",and then what I would
do is first pronounceboth, so "like", "t",
"like", "t", "like", "t",and now once I have
those two sounds down, I'm goingto move my finger to pronounce it.
So I'll go "like","t", "like", "t", "like",
"t", and then I'm goingto start moving my
finger a bit faster, "like", "t","like", "t", "liked", "liked", okay.
So I find that usingthe finger can really
help your brain learnhow to pronounce these
So let's try this onemore time, and you can
do this with all thesewords, but let's do
"Watch" is another commonword, another common
verb that with "ed"it has that "t" sound.
So I wrote "watch"and I wrote the "t", so I
can say "watch", "t","watch", "t", and now
what I'm going to do is blendthem, I'm going to put them together.
"Watch", "t", "watch", "t", okay, and thenI can start doing it faster once I get the
hang of it, "watched","watched", okay.
So again using that finger cue can reallyhelp you with the pronunciation of "ed".
So when do we use the "t" sound?
So we talked about "id" before.
When do we use the "t"sound for "ed" pronunciations?
So, why do we pronounce"ed" like a "t" sound?
Well, it can get a little confusing becauseI have to teach you about something called
So, when we have a verb and the last soundbefore the "ed" is a voiceless consonant,
So, before we get to voicelessconsonants, I'll give you some examples.
You can also thinkabout this with letters.
If "ed" comes after a "p" or like a "puh"as in "help", then you would pronounce it
If it's a "k", so in this word you have a"k" here, so "ed" is going to be pronounced
If you have an "s",so a verb that ends in
"s", "ed" is going tosound like a "t" sound.
If you have a verb that ends in a "ch"sound, then "ed" is pronounced like a "t".
And then if you havea word that ends in like
a "f" sound, so I knowthis is "gh", but it's
pronounced like an "f", "laugh", then"ed" is going to be pronounced like a "t".
And then finally, if you have some "th"sounds at the end, like in "bathed", the...
After the "th", "ed" is goingto be pronounced like a "t".
So, you can rememberit based off of these
letters or, you know,these letters represent
sounds, so if youhave a "p" sound, a "k"
sound, a "s" sound, a"ch" sound, a "f" sound,
or a "th" sound, then you wouldpronounce, like, "ed" like a "t".
You can also doit a different way.
You can learn what avoiceless consonant is.
So, a consonant are these types ofletters or sounds, so they are not vowels.
They are not "a","e", "i", "o", or "u".
A consonant are the othertypes of sounds in English.
I'm sorry I'm not a great artist,but I think it's good enough.
There might be someanatomy that's incorrect,
but that's okay becauseI want you to understand
this idea ofvoiceless consonants.
So we have here ourvocal cords or our voice box.
So, some sounds inEnglish, we use our voice box.
It's right here, and for some sounds, evenif you touch your throat right now, you'll
You might even feela "zzz" like a buzz.
So that happens whenthe voice box is moving.
Sometimes the voice box or the vocal cords,they do not move, and air just comes from
There's no movement, and it goesthrough the mouth out as a sound.
When there's no movement here,we call that a voiceless consonant.
So, for example, if I say this, "p", "p",and I feel my throat, "p", "p", there's no
All the sound is actuallycoming through my
mouth, so we call thatvoiceless because we're
We're not vibratingour vocal cords.
What's happeningwhen I make a "p" or a "p"
sound is the air is justcoming through, there's
no movement here, and it'sjust coming through my mouth.
It's the same with all of these.
We call these voiceless consonants becausethey're the sounds in English where there's
So you can see with "k", like the"k" sound, it's coming from the mouth.
If I feel "k", "k", there'sno buzz, but feel it
when you say "g", "g",you'll feel a difference.
For "s", you shouldn't feel anything hereif you go "sss" because this isn't moving,
it's all coming through the mouth, but ifyou said "zzz" like a "zed" sound, you do
So that's what I meanby voiceless consonants.
So, for some people,they like this description
or explanation, sothey will figure out if
a word ends in a voiceless consonant byfeeling their throat and thinking about it.
For other people,they don't like this, they
think it's confusing,and so they just prefer
to memorize, andthey'll just say, okay, "p"
sounds, "k" sounds,"s" sounds, "ch" sounds,
"f" sounds, and "th" sounds,okay, I'll just memorize that.
You can do it eitherway, whatever is easier
for you, but that's whatI mean by voiceless
when you see any verbs ending inthese sounds, you pronounce it like a "t".
So we've covered"id", we've covered "t",
now let's look at thethird way to pronounce
"ed", and that is the "d" sound.
So first let's look atsome common verbs that
have that "d" sound,and I want you to listen
So we have "loved","called", "cried", "lived",
"moved", "closed","opened", "smiled", "played".
So notice I'm not saying "loved","called", "I cried", "I lived", no, no, no.
What we're doing is we're just sayingthe verb and then pronouncing a "d" sound.
So just like what wedid with the "t", we can
do the same thing withour finger to practice
So I have here theverb "love", like here,
so if I want to pronounceit properly, I can
first start by writingthis on a piece of paper.
I write the word "love",and then I write the "d".
And what I can do issay them separately first,
so "loved", "loved","loved", and then what
I can do is use myfinger, combine them into
one word, "loved","loved", "loved", and then
I start trying to do it faster,"loved", "loved", "I loved it".
Let's try anotherexample with this.
So now I'm going towork on the word "call".
Actually, I shouldn't havewritten this here, let me just...
So we're doing thisone next, so I have "call"
and I have a "d", sowhat I can do is first
pronounce themseparately, "called", "called",
and now I'm going touse my finger and blend
them, "called", "called","called", and then
when I'm ready, I canstart moving my finger
faster and pronouncingit all together, "called",
"called", "called","I called my sister."
All right, so let's look atanother example of this.
I have here "live", sothat's this one, and now
I'm going to do thesame thing, I've written
"live" and I've written "d", and I'm goingto use my finger to help my pronunciation.
First I'll start separately,"lived", "lived".
Now I'm going to blend it with my finger,"lived", "lived", and then I'm going to go
faster, "lived", "lived", "I livedin Toronto for many years."
So you might have to takesome time with blending,
I'm doing it quickly,but it might take you
a little bit of time,and that's fine.
I recommend that youtry to use this strategy
with the rest of thewords here and see if
Now, the next question iswhen do we use the "d" for "ed"?
So, this is when wepronounce "ed" like a "d" sound.
We do it when a verbends in a voiced consonant.
So I alreadyexplained voiceless.
Let's first think about some of theletter sounds a verb might end in.
So, here we have "l", so if you see a verbending in an "l" sound, like "call", "ed"
then becomes pronouncedlike a "d", "called".
If there's an "n" sound,like "clean", "clean"
ends in an "n" sound,the "ed" is pronounced
If a verb ends in a"b" or a "b" sound, like
"rubbed", we wouldpronounce it like a "d".
Same with an "r", so "answer" ends inan "r" sound, so we would say "answered".
"Love" ends in a "v"sound, so here's the "v".
So, if you see a "v"and then "ed" after it,
you're going to pronounceit like a "d", "loved".
"M", verbs that end in "m", you're going toadd that "d" sound when you're pronouncing
"ed".
"G", so "hug" is anexample, "hugged".
"Zed", so this can beconfusing because sometimes
"s"s are actuallypronounced like "zed", so
for example, here we actually have a "zed","buzzed", so if you hear that "z" sound, we
would pronounce "ed"like a "d" or like a "d".
For a "y", an "e", oran "i" sound, you would
pronounce it like a "d",so for example, "play"
ends in a "y", soyou'd say "played".
And then finally, ifyou see the "d", "g",
"e" together, like it'spronounced like "j",
"judge", then youwould say "judged".
So, one way to do this is you canremember the consonants or the letters.
Another way to do thisis to think about voicing.
Now we're going to talkabout voiced consonants.
So, a voiced consonantis a consonant, which
means it's not avowel, it's not an "a", it's
not an "e", it's not an "i",it's not an "o", it's not a "u".
When we're talkingabout voiced consonants,
what we mean is thatyour voice box actually
vibrates, so it moves whenyou pronounce these sounds.
So what happens,here's our diagram, the air
goes up, but thenthis is the voice box or
the vocal cords, theymove, they vibrate.
So then when the air hits them, it createsthis "z" sound, this buzzing sound, and you
can feel it in yourthroat, and then the air
comes out the mouthand it's pronounced as
So, for example, if we do "l", "call", ifyou go "l", "l", you'll feel movement here.
If you do "n", "b","r", "b", "m", "g", "z",
and if you do, like,"play", "a" sounds, or
"j", you'll feel the movement in here,so that's why we call it a voiced sound.
So "voiceless" isthere's no vibration here,
"voiced" is there isvibration in your throat.
But again, if this isconfusing, forget this
picture, and you canalso just memorize the
letters, or the final sounds,which are "l", "n", "b",
"r", "v", "m", "g", "z", "y","e", "i", and "d", "g", "e".
Okay?
We've covered the three ways topronounce "ed", "id", "d", and "t".
So, most importantly, there'sthree ways to pronounce "ed".
It depends on whatthe final letter is before
the "ed", how wepronounce it, and we can
use the blending method to really help uspractice so we don't say, like, "loved", we
We don't say "called",we say "called".
So, practice thatblending method with your
finger, and I think itwill really help your
So, thank you so muchfor watching today.
You can take my quiz at www.engvid.comto practice what you learned here.
There's a lot ofinformation in this video,
it's really goodinformation, but it's important
that you practicewhat you learned.
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