Which letters are aspirated

The [k] of skill isn't at the beginning of the syllable -- there's a [s] before it. At the beginning of a word -- whether the syllable is stressed or not.

So aspiration can be used as another way of telling if some syllables are stressed or not. We can tell that the final -to of potato is completely unstressed even though it has an [o] instead of a schwa , because its t has becomed tapped as we expect in an unstressed syllable instead of aspirated as we expect in a stressed syllable.

Plosives are not aspirated in French. The English word two and the French word tout 'all' might both be given the broad transcription [tu] , but they differ in the presence or absence of aspiration:.

One of the most characteristic features of an English accent in French is aspirating plosives which should not be aspirated. We've listed any clues from our database that match your search.

There will also be a list of synonyms for your answer. The synonyms have been arranged depending on the number of charachters so that they're easy to find. If a particular answer is generating a lot of interest on the site today, it may be highlighted in orange. If your word has any anagrams, they'll be listed too along with a definition for the word if we have one. The voiced stops b and d in Sanskrit and Hindi also have aspirated forms that are usually transliterated as bh and dh.

In English Voiceless stops are aspirated when they occur as the only thing in the onset of a stressed syllable. When they say Mow-en, they are not wrong. Adele or Lily Allen, when they drop internal Ts for the glottal stop, are not mispronouncing anything, they are being true to their voice.

So it drives me crazy when people assume I am stupid because I have a Southern accent, although I used that fact to get out of a ticket in LA once, saying, gee whiz, out in New Mexico all the speed limits are 75 for highways, with my best Magnolia Mouth. A look of contempt and no ticket. I open my mouth and they hear Preppie, and I have to be careful not to sound like I am talking down to the cop. In England, sounding Posh is not a complement, and people like John Major, who sound perfectly normal but British to us Americans, are speaking risibly because of their attempt to be posh without getting the shibboleths right.

So I say don't worry about it if you are a native speaker of English, and if you are learning, try to learn the English of a particular place, and then you will be consistant with yourself. I believe that whether it is treated as aspirated or silent frequently deals with the domain of snobbery. The snobbish prefer to treat most h's as silent, so that they have the opportunity to write "an hotel" or "an hospital," when clearly these are not the standard pronunciations.

It falls into the same category as the misuse of the verb "graduate" e. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Aspirated letters vs. Silent letters Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 11 months ago. Active 6 years, 10 months ago. Viewed 10k times.

How are aspirated letters different from silent letters when pronouncing a word?