EJECTIVE CONSONANTS in ENGLISH: Why do English speakers pronounce /k/ like that?

[@irgendwer3610]

you are so incredibly informative to both laymen and long time linguistics enthusiasts, absolutely enjoyed this video

[@chriscorbo7439]

I indeed want to know what this special k is, who’s using it and how to make it. 👀

[@ajwinberg]

Right?

[@Malchiar010695]

You probably lay men

[@rsvihla]

As he said, it’s not a click.

[@jlynec]

It's so bizarre to suddenly hear the click after being a native English speaker for 40 years lol. I don't think I'll ever unhear it!

[@ConDude25]

I thought the same thing! Also bizarre that you can say the words both ways correctly.

[@rhopi]

As an Indian it was the other way round for me. In Indian languages, the ejective sounds are separate consonants and in Indian English we primarily use the ejective sounds so that's how I used to hear it. Only recently did I realise that Western speakers primarily use the 'regular' sounds.

[@pratn]

@@rhopi can you give an example from an Indian language

[@rhopi]

@@pratn For example, in Hindi we have the letters क for ejective K and ख for regular K. But when speaking English, Indians generally use the former for K.

[@dani-elle-au9935]

That's arguable 🤣

[@mogki4d]

k'- snare drum p' - kick drum t'- hi-hat Now go forth and beatbox

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewic8158]

I can confirm that the ejectives are used in beatboxing

[@drunkdriver983]

May I suggest a ts’ for a hi hat

[@markcox5385]

t’ for closed hi-hat. ts’ for open hi-hat. 😀

[@SIC647]

Ohh. Thank you. Now I understand how my son can do a rythm and melody at the same time.

[@Ixaglet]

I'm an ESL teacher and I teach my students to beatbox by saying "boots, cats", without pronouncing the vowels. B-ts-C-ts :D

[@Sally4th_]

I've been speaking English as a native for over 60 years and never noticed the click. This series is fascinating to get an outside perspective on something I just take for granted - the English language!

[@thelukesternater]

Wow I’m half way, 30 years myself!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks so much. (By the way ejectives are strictly different from the sounds we call 'clicks' in phonetics, though obviously the sound is like a click.)

[@seneca983]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I think it would make more sense to call the click consonants something else. Maybe "smack" (in the sense of the sound of a loud kiss)? Ejectives sound more "clicky" to me than click consonants. Of course, changing established terminology would be difficult.

[@danielmcelroy4505]

💯💯💯

[@herrrob14]

I'm a native speaker of English who is a German teacher. I learned so much about the structure of German. However, in my 40's I started teaching English as second language, as well. I was blown away by how complicated the structure of English really is, including the sound system and grammatical structures. It's fascinating to discover all the rules and patterns that I've been following my whole life and I wasn't even aware of them.

[@duetopersonalreasonsaaaaaa]

I was taught to pronounce words like this while singing in choir (USA), especially when a word ends with a 't' to make it more audible to the audience. So interesting to find this video by chance! Thank you, algorithm :)

[@annasolovyeva1013]

Singing in choir in Russia it's even more complicated: you study to use the sounds in singing and in your English speaking (to emphasize the ends, Russian has quite a different approach to word endings), but you never speak like that.

[@frankifyed.]

When you're recording music, its the opposite because mics are sensitive, which is why you have a pop filter between you and the mic to mitigate the harshness of plosives

[@annasolovyeva1013]

@@frankifyed. academic technique is for a big hall /cathedral unamplified, not microphones. It often sounds awful with a micro.

[@kendramiller8419]

Same. Taught this in choir but without the technical explanation.

[@heidi_mcheidiface]

I learned that some choir members just sing the word normally and a few replace the consonants with harsher ones. For example the word God is frequent in choir music, and some people would sing Cod or Cot instead.

[@zammich3649]

We use A LOT of these (including [p'] and [t']) when teaching English to Japanese speakers. The Japanese language doesn't have many final consonants, so students can have trouble hearing and producing them without the extra emphasis granted by the ejective -- although over-using them can have the adverse effect of "coddling" students and pushing them to over-pronounce their words. Language and teaching language can both be tricky things. I never knew the word for these before or realized they were pronounced differently from a standard "kh" sound, though, so this video has been really informative!

[@evantesseract737]

@Suzann Lee I've been trying to learn Korean and going the other way is pretty tricky too 😂

[@evantesseract737]

@Suzann Lee it's the right kind of hard for me! Consonants I couldn't even hear at first and particles everywhere and having to figure out how formal I'm trying to be 🤣🤣🤣 I'm three months in and at the point where I can hear a sentence in Korean and hear exactly enough words I recognize to say "he's politely agreeing with something and adding that something exists" or "wait we're talking about a dog, or maybe a crab" 😂

[@Mslc727]

I'm working as an English teacher in Japan and just realized this because of your comment. I definitely do this when trying to teach kids how to pronounce things.

[@doyleeee]

I am a Japanese learner of English and I never knew this until now. I am very surprised because no one told me about it and I was not aware of it. Language learning is interesting.

[@cjmacq-vg8um]

there's nothing odd about that. its called a "k" sound. the difference is many americans don't pronounce the "k" at the end of words. or they pronounce it lazily, like a "g.' i swear, people can't even get their differences right. there's NO problem with how the english pronounce "k's!" one thing i noticed, beginning particularly with oild beatles' interviews, the english tend to really sound-out the "g" with words ending in "ing." this "ejectivizing' really comes out on your "g's" not your "k's." americans's just kind of leave off the "g" sound at the end of words. "loving" becomes"lovin'." "standing" becomes "standin'." its the "g" not the "k" that's different.

[@unvergebeneid]

As a native German speaker who's trying to lose his tell-tale glottal stop before vowels, it's comforting to hear that native English speakers are on their way to meet me half-way 😄

[@cinnamon3389]

I’m a native English speaker and I tend to say a glottal stop before vowels too, am I not meant to do that?

[@jakobraahauge7299]

I learned a formal British English - one of things I had work on to make it sound more palatable to Americans was to kick the glottal stop. I was surprisingly hard for me to soften my accent! Now I speak an obscure with somewhat continental accent somewhere in between British and American English. Unless I snap - then I regress right back to what I learned in school 🤬😂

[@unvergebeneid]

@@jakobraahauge7299 And here I thought sounding _any_ kind of British would immediately get you laid in the US...

[@TS29er]

That is exactly what I was thinking when he said that English native speakers tend to use the glottal stop more frequently

[@unvergebeneid]

@@cinnamon3389 I think as a native English speaker you're in the comfortable position to do whatever the heck you want ;D Except for that comma splice there... you're supposed to know better 😘

[@qwertyTRiG]

Using Tom Scott as a linguistics sample is excellent!

[@Mythraen]

When he fixes his channel so that you can say words like "he" and "black" without having your comment shadowbanned, maybe I'll stop thinking of him with anything besides disgust. Try it, go to a video of his, make a perfectly innocuous comment in reply to any thread, use the word "he" in it somewhere, then check the thread while logged out and you won't see your comment. (Note, use a link to the thread and _not_ a link to the specific comment. Those will work.) There's quite a number of perfectly innocent words that will cause this, and it seriously disrupts the ability to have a discussion under his videos. I e-mailed him about it more than a year ago. I never received a response and, so far as I know, nothing has been done.

[@jacobbannier]

I'm APPAULED!

[@MysticKoolAidMan]

@@Mythraen yikes, just tested, he's right

[@molamolalaaa2968]

@@Mythraen I kind of understand ‘black’ but what’s wrong with ‘he’?

[@Mythraen]

@@molamolalaaa2968 I mean, I can only speculate on what happened. My speculation is that someone (not necessarily Tom, as I expect he has channel managers for this) tried to ban a phrase/sentence/comment and instead banned all of the words in that phrase/sentence/comment individually. Also, while you can certainly say some bad things about black people and that's not acceptable, referring to black people or black, the color, is generally not remotely controversial in itself. I discovered this one while talking about his _black_ and white lines video. Note, those two words were the ones I remembered. There were several more that I found, and likely many I did not find. If you want a real explanation, though, I suggest you ask Tom Scott... and then he can ignore your e-mail too.

[@benjaminwatt2469]

Thank you. it's a little embarrassing when you're getting you masters in linguistics and you haven't even noticed this feature of language

[@lujinahjfairi3760]

May be because your visual perception is more dominant over your audio.

[@litigioussociety4249]

Unless you're studying a language that specifically uses the feature to distinguish between words, then it's not going to be relevant. Every language has ranges of pronunciation of different syllables, and has variations in dialects in regard to whether something is homophonic or not. As long as you're a descriptivist about language and not a prescriptivist, you'll be all right.

[@tolgaaykut4557]

More embarrassing still, is that you have written “you” and not “your” in your statement. Bravo.

[@ellisonsimon]

@@tolgaaykut4557 Burn

[@rillloudmother]

As soon as I heard this, I realize I only do this when I am trying to be annoying.

[@ElectronerpProductions]

i'm a na'vi learner, and your video is now being used within the community as an example of how to use the ejectives!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Really? Can you give me a link of some kind?

[@KevinJennissen]

@@DrGeoffLindsey You know that the aliens from Avatar you jokingly used in the video are called na'vi, right? EDIT: this comment was egotistical, lame, and innacurate. I apologize.

[@ferrous719]

​@@KevinJennissen he literally named them. He was requesting an example of his work being used for teaching.

[@KevinJennissen]

@@ferrous719 Wow, I am stupid. I thought the commenter was joking and claiming to be a literal na'vi, not someone learning the fictional language. I want to delete my snarky, "um, actually" comment, but I'll leave it up to possibly embolden others to admit their mistakes and learn from them.

[@Jellybeansatdusk]

I’d love a linK or a piK

[@alexisprojects]

Why is this in my KZbin feed? Why did I watch the whole thing? Why was it so fascinating? Here's a lik'e.

[@1ong1ashes]

I'm a native English speaker, and after experimenting with this, I agree that the click seems to happen when I use hard attack. I think that people do this when speaking formally to keep their words clear, enunciated, sharp, and separate. Otherwise, things tend to run together, take over sort of becomes takeover.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Yes, hard attack is characteristic of 'explanatory' type speech more than conversation. But older folks like me don't use it much.

[@Whatevsbabes]

Separate has two when I say it.

[@nepdisc3722]

You had a heart attack!? Are you okay!?!?

[@dietotaku]

that's what it sounds like to me. hearing all those examples i was like "that's just proper diction..."

[@unwilling_fan]

I did realize I do this most when I'm teaching/tutoring bc I want others to understand me better

[@Thomas-u8q]

I always associated ejectives with relatively obscure languages like Georgian or Chechen, I never realised they were in English. I guess I never noticed because they're purely allophonic rather than true phonemes

[@marioluigi9599]

I always associated them with people being pretentious lol. I'm surprised they're not... or maybe they still are?

[@extasja]

based pfp

[@highgroundproductions8590]

I'm not even sure what his pfp is.

[@marioluigi9599]

@@highgroundproductions8590 what's a pfp?

[@highgroundproductions8590]

Profile picture

[@GiraffeFlavored]

Thank you for irreversibly altering how my brain perceives my own native language, I will now forever be subconsciously listening to this when people speak to me forever 👍 It's like noticing your accent for the first time. It changes you. Thanks, Scott the Woz for being from Ohio. You're why I noticed how nasally we speak and it has changed me forever.

[@zoyadulzura7490]

This gives me a new respect for the language in the Avatar movies, and for Paul Former. I didn't know so much care was put into the language construction and usage. The fact that a Na'vi speaker has a specific accent while speaking English is something we don't see in any other movie with a constructed language that I know of. Those little details are what make a universe feel alive.

[@Man_fay_the_Bru]

Pity the movie is total crap about space hippies🤷‍♂️

[@benpuljak2304]

@@Man_fay_the_Bru go watch rambo

[@DawnDavidson]

@@Man_fay_the_Bru but they are very pretty space hippies, with a nifty conlang! 😂

[@kayzee3595]

@@Man_fay_the_BruOnly a hippie would think Na’vi are hippie 😂 Pathetic loser!

[@abmindprof]

Bit' of a sly reference to Tom Scott' who after all makes his own phonetics vids. BTW, using this in my phonetics class!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks, I hope your class like it!

[@castelodeossos3947]

Was once a teacher of English as a Foreign Language and always taught the students the phonemic alphabet to help them improve their pronunciation and work it out by looking at a dictionary. Never noticed the ejective plosives and have now discovered it in my own speech. What appears not to be mentioned in this (as usual) superbly made video is that the ejectives appear always (as far as I can work out) at the end of a word, and may appear even when nothing follows. Eg: 'Let's go for a walk.'

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

As I show, other languages like Quechua have ejectives at the start of words. And as I say at the end, I think English ejectives may be becoming more common because of glottal stops at the start of the next word. (Very rarely I do hear one inside a word in English.)

[@thomaswilliams2273]

A possible midword example would be indicative.

[@sKadazhnief]

@@thomaswilliams2273 I really don't think 《indicative》 has any ejectives in it, perhaps you are mistaking it for aspiration? if not, perhaps could you be more specific as to where in the word you find the ejective consonant?

[@thomaswilliams2273]

@@sKadazhnief It's just that I believe I have heard the word pronounced with a pause between the c and the I. Not all the time though, but more when it's used in frustration when answering a question.

[@sKadazhnief]

often I find in my own accent, the ejective plosives are far more common before words that have an unwritten initial glottal stop. in the coda at the end of a sentence my plosives tend to become unreleased versions (at least in quick speech): [p̚ t̚ k̚] lets ɡo to the park ⟨park⟩ [päːk̚]

[@Veggieman87]

This is the kind of content I love: really particular information that I'd likely never ask about, but the presenter (who is likely an expert in the subject) is enthusiastically enjoying sharing this information in a clear, digestible, and relatable and/or silly way. And for some reason, at least in my experience, they're almost always from the UK... I'm sure that's a coincidence, though.

[@DumplingsAunt]

I’ll chime in here as a linguist and 30-year ESL teacher who’s never been overtly aware of these ejectives. Fascinating! I’m also impressed that you collected all those video examples.

[@jonathanseagraves8140]

Though I was never consciously aware of ejective consonants, I have previously used them when I was intentionally trying to sound insufferable or obnoxious (as a tool for mockery). It's weird how some things can go completely unnoticed by one area of your mind, while a separate area of your mind, not only understands it, but is actively using it as a communication technique.

[@CherilynQ]

Non-native English speaker here. I always thought that's how these consonants should be pronounced and that I was just not pronouncing them properly. Thanks so much for this informative and entertaining video!

[@randomdude4669]

It is, its just not common in American English

[@BlueTigerRunning]

I've noticed that I've been doing this in an effort to speak clearer and more concise for people to understand me. I am American, but when I was younger somehow inherited a rapid, less enunciated k's and other letters, kind of ran together, sort of mumbling, my mom said my dad did this, so I feel speaking this way makes it easier to understand English really.

[@wohdinhel]

This is definitely a regional thing and by no means universal. Most of my adolescent English was influenced by Appalachian dialects, where consonants are very much *not* heavily emphasized. The only time in which we would have done an ejective k’ is when deliberately enunciating for emphasis.

[@ianp7661]

My partner is from Greece and he likes to repeat this sound when I do it. I had never even noticed I did it until he did. I also didn't realise it was an emerging trend. I think it's quite common where I'm from in Manchester, even with the older generations.

[@mayfield3314]

Did Geoff just hold his breath long enough to read 2 books? That's impressive.

[@nedcurfman3486]

I’m more impressed by your ability to read half of Bone in one breath than the amount of ejective Ks I now notice

[@pie_IRL]

Wow! Legitimately fascinating. I was having trouble making the /k/ sound but found it far easier if I say "like and". I think the only time I've ever come across ejective consonants in conversation is when someone purposefully stresses the word "nope" and it has the /p/ sound at the end.

[@sKadazhnief]

you probably have come across it, without realisinɡ lol

[@AB-ft7ng]

Really interesting! Reminds me of the unique sound “sks” makes, like in “masks” or “tasks”. Once you notice it, it’s impossible to ignore 😁

[@gangstreG123]

Probably closer to a glottal flap in that case

[@JoeJigsy]

Or Crisps

[@AB-ft7ng]

@@JoeJigsy Yeah, kind of similar! “-sks” feels like the throat closes off somewhere, whereas “-sps” is just closing the lips. You can also hold and repeat “-spspsps..” for as long as you can hold a breath unlike “-sks”

[@JoeJigsy]

@@AB-ft7ng I agree, although you can definitely say '-sksks...', but much slower than '-spsps...'!

[@jorriffhdhtrsegg]

@@JoeJigsy wasps. Makes a whilsting sound when i say these words

[@Konim96]

Thank you so much for this explanation. I am an amateur linguist whose little hobby is going around various IPA lists of other languages on wikipedia and trying to learn how to pronounce those very foreign sounds. I got the hang of the majority of sounds (I think so at least) but the ejective consonants have always escaped me because I could never get any feedback to know if I am doing it right, and your little demonstration here showed me that I've been doing it my entire life with ease, without even knowing it! The more I learn about phonetics and phonology the more I am amazed at how many different sounds we are capable of producing without even realizing it.

[@sheep4483]

this reminded me of a while ago, when I was trying to learn to sing a bit, and I kept hearing things like "you need to train to raise your palate," so I assumed I must have been doing it wrong because I would need to train it, I was thinking like "but if I raise it too much it starts to hurt and make me gag, am I supposed to train to stop that from happening to raise it more?" but no I just found it super natural from learning some IPA years earlier so I did it the first time I tried (or maybe I'm just still doing it wrong)

[@Konim96]

@@sheep4483 Are you referring to the back palate which opens up with nasal sounds? 😁 If so, I too had no idea I had control over the back palate until I learned how nasal sounds work

[@bernadmanny]

As someone who loves trivia and esoterica the was wonderful. I also appreciate that you use humour in your instruction as learning doesn't need to be dry and serious to be 'good' teaching.

[@coralpilled]

Fascinating. I was learning about ejectives in a phonetics class I'm taking and was driving myself crazy because I couldn't figure out how to make them, but watching this video I realized I have been unknowingly making them my whole life.

[@Richard-zm6pt]

I am not aware of using ejectives, but people have told me I do and asked me why. In my case, it is especially true of the k'. I'm an American, but I've had exposure to a lot of English dialects by moving around throughout my life. I have my own blend of features. I just found your channel and have been enjoying and learning from every video. Thank you for publishing.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

Actually, the speakers I know, who have a very pronounced ejective k' (all relatively young Brits), also regularly have it at the very end of a turn of talk, without any vowel, or anything else, for that matter, following it.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Sure, that's where it started, and it was rare before vowels. But I think the increase in hard attack has probably increased its use before vowels. It's striking how Margot Robbie uses normal k utterance finally then ejective k' before a vowel.

[@Pruney-]

Young brit from the north west, didn't even realize I clicked this much. Can't get myself to do a none ejective...

[@mjwemdee]

Amazing stuff. As a singing teacher I'm very aware of glottal stops and what their value is in interpreting a lyric (and more importantly when singers should try to minimise them) but this video about ejectives is just mind-blowing!

[@kyratejerozumeta9634]

I have discovered you some days ago and as retired English teacher I am astonished and amused at the same time, and every day I watch one of your videos. They make me think of my phonetics class when studying English Philology in Salamanca. My teacher was a horrible man and a worse teacher!!!! I am having a great time now with your excellent videos and make me feel young ,happy and motivated to go on learning Thank you for your great job and your excellent lessons. Greetings from Spain.

[@NancyKimShim]

I study K’iche’, and as the name of the language suggests, it has a glottal stop k’! It’s a distinct sound that changes the meaning of a word when it’s used rather than a non glottal stop k. When I started learning k’iche’, I had difficulty with the glottal stops. This video helps me reconceptualize how I practice the various glottal stops and electives in the language. My favorite tho is glottal stop q (q’)

[@TheSonicShoe]

I've always been at least partially aware of these sounds, and I've always sort of thought of them as verbal punctuation. I typically use them at the ends of sentences, or when I really want to emphasize the importance of a certain word in a sentence.

[@ItoeKobayashi]

This was the clearest explanation I've ever heard for the use of ejectives in English. Thank you! I'm finally able to really notice the difference!

[@abluecassette]

A friend linked me here and really enjoyed it, I love your sense of humour. I'm from South Australia and I use the ejective K sometimes, never realised what it was or why I do it! Wow at that lecturer using the trifecta haha.

[@ZealotScript]

I've no idea why the algorithm recommended me this video, but that was fascinating!

[@tturner0051]

Never heard this before, & now I cant unhear it. Thanks 🤣🤣

[@vacafuega]

Have spent years talking English with people for whom it is a second language, so over the years my natural speech patterns have wound up much clearer and stronger than they started out, as i've strived to be easier to understand. So a lot like your previous video ending, actually! I reckon the massive rise of communication via conference calls must be causing a shift towards increasingly marked pronunciation, as people try to make themselves understood through compression and audio artefacts.

[@tinfoilhomer909]

If you're interested in dialect levelling there are papers on the Antarctic accent.

[@dianeshelton9592]

And masks, we must indeed have learnt to speak differently , especially those in the Nhs and care indusdutry who spent the last 2 years wearing a mask for up to 12 hours a day.

[@brentwalker3300]

Good point.

[@t.c.bramblett617]

Thanks for mentioning this phenomenon that I have noticed ever since I visited Georgia 20 years ago and learned Georgian from native speakers. As ejective consonants are contrastive phonemes in their language, they noticed and pointed out when I was doing it inaccurately at the end of their words! Then I realized it was a regular feature of my speech, and I haven't read any linguistic treatment of it since then.

[@embryomystic]

I NEVER NOTICED THIS! And now I'm going to hear it every time someone does it. I've always had a hard time producing ejectives (I don't speak any languages that have them as contrastive phonemes, but I've read about some and tried to make the sounds).

[@abhishekdixit638]

Great video, a really good example of 'Infotainment' भारतातून भरपूर प्रेम! (Lots of love from India 🇮🇳)

[@sleepykoinu]

I don't know why KZbin decided to recommend me this but it was fascinating. I'd never noticed the sound before and now I hear it very clearly. I like your sense of humor too.

[@pseudonym1337]

Incredibly fascinating- I had heard this before but never noticed it. In the dialect of American English I speak & most often hear spoken, our final stops are invariably very weak, almost unreleased.

[@nckoes]

New England? We drop our Ts and Rs like crazy. I'm realizing that I use the K.

[@pseudonym1337]

@@nckoes West Coast- I don't think anyone uses this ejective K here but now I'll be on the lookout

[@elizabethpemberton8445]

I’m an American singer, and have been taught to call these “shadow consonants,” [edit: oops, I meant that the vowel after them is a shadow vowel, my brain is old] along with G, D, B, and M, N, F, and V, mostly. The direction is generally that shadow consonants get a conscious schwa, almost a new syllable, at the end. The point is to make the diction better for the audience, especially in choral settings. For solo singing, of course, they are a bit much, unless you like to sing-ah about the moon-ah and the June-ah and the Spring-ah.

[@clara_cross]

I'm not trained in singing at all, but I've noticed these, and I've always called them ghost vowels.

[@polyrhythmia]

You hear Bob Seger doing this in the song "Turn the Page-uh".

[@XerxesTexasToast]

The professor giving the speech and using the little pop when saying "up" instantly reminded me of a Game Grumps joke about the same pop, and then I tested it out and it CLICKED! (heh) You really do close the glottis whenever you make sounds like these!

[@danielsebald5639]

Fancy seeing you here!

[@LukeZuniga]

what was the context for the joke? I love Game Grumps

[@dwoktheraynejonsohn4849]

@@LukeZuniga Dan asked Arin if he would still be his friend if he enunciated the "p" sound in every word that has it. During the sonic heroes playthrough

[@ZoromeLV]

A colleague shared this video to me and I'm so grateful they did. Thank you for putting together all those clips to so clearly show the phenomenon of ejectives. I feel much wiser!

[@coyotech55]

I'm a native speaker of American English, and I'd never noticed that sound as being a separate sound before, either. But yes, I think your explanation for it is right. We have so many more people doing public speaking now than we used to, with video blogging and podcasts! They have to be careful to be understandable and not run their words together too much. Another sound I'm curious about is way we do 2 "t"s in the middle of the word - button, getting, etc. and why it sounds more like a hard glottal stop in some words like button, and more like a "d" in others - betting vs bedding, for instance. This is probably different in the various accents, but not many English speakers would use an actual "t" sound.

[@rebeccamay6420]

Language and pronunciation fascinate me. After watching these and other accent & dialect videos, I became very attuned to the difference between the glottal stop in "button" and the softened T in "butter" and the hard T in "between."

[@EebstertheGreat]

It's hard to say, because it depends a lot on your accent. In a word like "betting" or "bedding," you might be pronouncing both like [ɾ], an alveolar flap, which is the same sound as in the Spanish word "para." This is common in many parts of the U.S. The reason you (and most people) hear it as a /d/ (rather than a /t/) might be because it is not aspirated. This isn't necessarily exclusive to words spelled with a doubled t or d. Words like "hater" and "glider" are pronounced with that same sound in my dialect (and thus, "trader" and "traitor" are homophones). Words like "button" have many possible pronunciations, including with a glottal stop [ʔ] for the t, which is also common in many parts of the U.K. This still isn't only restricted to double t, considering words like "mightn't" and "matins." Most examples do have a double t, because most examples have the inflection or suffix -en, and a final t is typically doubled before an -en (e.g. batten, written).

[@livrowland171]

In RP English we use an 'actual T sound' in betting 🤔

[@danil3ddozer]

I’ve subscribed to your channel in just 20 seconds. Thanks for reading a Russian name with Russian accent and the T-shirt is super amazing

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Не за что :)

[@thekidfromiowa]

There's even pharyngelized ejectives like in the extinct Ubykh language which is notorious for it's inventory of consonants.

[@nohandle508]

Now I know what I'm reading about at the weekend, thank you!

[@AnkerPeet]

I used to live in Peru and picked up on a few Quecha words and phrases. I never realized we make those sounds in English too. Thanks for the content!

[@MooTV]

I'm not going to be able to unhear that clicking sound now that you've pointed it out

[@jamiemason943]

I first noticed the sharply enunciated “K” sound while listening Karl Pilkington. I then started noticing it with a few other British actors and thought it was due to dialect of where the people were from in certain parts of Britain. I really enjoy your videos and was so excited to know that this is a thing and has a name! Thank you

[@star_fossil]

"Manc"

[@SpareSomeChange8080]

"head like a f'king orange", I can certainly here it

[@kchodron406]

That's interesting because I grew up near Manchester and I was surprised to discover that it was anything noteworthy 😅. We also replace 't' with a 'k' sometimes, eg pronouncing hospital as 'ospikal. (We never pronounce 'h' at the beginning of a word).

[@sandroselladore3506]

I have to appreciate how you clearly did your research to pronounce Valery Moskvin's name. It sounds quite close to how a Russian native would pronounce it. Granted, idk if he's Russian, but with a name like that it's very likely

[@SavageBear_YT]

Hey, this was my first video of yours and I absolutely love it. Linguistics is becoming a favourite subject of mine, and your content explains things beautifully. The clip from Glasgow Uni was amazing too. Thanks for the video!

[@vickykourbatova5433]

I took a phonetics class and was really confused by ejectives because I was never able to produce them on purpose. When you said that they were usually formed in English before glottal stops at the beginning of a word, I tried that and was immediately able to produce and then isolate all three. Thank you!

[@pubfixture]

After your intro, while describing the glottal stop with the MRI image you say, "pocket". Then I realized "pocket" might be the perfect example, as you can speak the entire word in this way without breathing.

[@gwenmarcus3389]

Fascinating. This video was made 2 years ago. I am excited to go back and watch all your videos. Thank you for taking your time to share your knowledge. You have such an organized and clear style.

[@ynazbazi9003]

Best existing video on ejectives! Thank you.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you. Very kind.

[@FahboyMan2549]

As a non-native speaker, I was tought since elementary that I have to half-repeat the consonant sound after an English word. Everyone was kinda joking about it (we don't have this in my native language). Today I learn there is a name for that sound. Thank you.

[@McLeod2022]

Videos produced so clearly as this remind me of Minard's Napolean map (a visual, not auditory, masterpiece of statistical presentation) in that it clearly relates a lot of information in a very short time with absolute clarity. New to the channel and will be travelling though other posts. Having taught Organic Chem at Univ I had to find ways to relate visual concepts, such as use of colors to relate electron movements, structural changes... to make black and white take on a conceptual understanding, so I do appreciate the ability to take the technical and make it "common person". Also, Dr Mike (Mikhail Varshavski) was cited as as American English @ 01:31, but he is Russian and immigrated at a young age and speaks Russian... I've only dabbled briefly and poorly in Russian and do not know whether this ejective pronunciation is common in that spoken language. Danke!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you! Praise indeed. I don't think Russian has ejectives, and Dr Mike learned English early enough to be native.

[@darthryking]

Oh wow. Years ago I attempted to learn Na'vi and I could never figure out how to consciously control my pronunciation of the ejective consonants (which the language does distinguish from non-ejectives). Now after all these years this video made me finally get it.

[@Jabullz]

Watched for the info, WAS SHOCKED when the Bone book came up! I haven't seen that comic in years. I loved them.

[@Zenithell]

This makes me think about how, at least in American English, we often place a glottal stop right before a vowel if it is the first word in a sentence. (At least, in my dialect - I've not studied it much for others) I think ejective consonants are very neat, so thank you for the informative video!

[@wojciechgrodnicki6302]

These are fascinating videos. Never considered that clicking sounds exist in English. I've heard them in Xhosa and Swahili but never detected them in English before this. Mind blown.

[@gwen6622]

as he says in the video, it's not a click, it's an ejective. the clicks in xhosa are different than these sounds, and swahili does not have clicks or ejectives. clicks and ejectives are different, separate things

[@wojciechgrodnicki6302]

@@gwen6622 I stand corrected about the ejective.

[@paulabuls5802]

When I was in middle school I moved to a new city and a new school. I was made fun of because I had a strong ejective K accent. I’m originally from central Texas. It’s good to finally learn what this is called. FYI, I also have a strong pin-pen merge which my wife finds hugely amusing!

[@ax14pz107]

I'm from North Carolina and my pen and pin have no difference. It drives my wife, who's from Chicago, crazy.

[@paulabuls5802]

@@ax14pz107 my wife is from Ohio. She made fun of my pin-pen merger until I discovered that she pronounces wolf with out sounding the L. She pronounces it “woof”. We both have a better respect for each other’s regional dialects now. 🙂

[@samuraitoaster]

@@paulabuls5802I’m from the Seattle area, married a Texan and moved to Texas. I’ll never forget one time asking my mother in law if she had a pen I could borrow, she goes “A what?” Me: “a pen?” Her: “I don’t understand what you’re saying” Me:“ P. E. N…PEN” and she goes “ OHHH!!! A PIIIIIIIN!” 😂. What makes me laugh the most is that I have no idea what she could’ve thought I was saying or if it sounded like gibberish? I have no clue lol

[@ax14pz107]

@@samuraitoaster maybe she thought you were saying pan funny and was confused?

[@loopbraider]

@@samuraitoaster Your "pen" probably sounded something like "pan" to her!

[@tzerpa9446]

Great video. Finally someone talking about English really knowing the material.

[@godsavethequeen457]

I have no idea why KZbin recommended this video. I have never seen one of your videos before and your channel has never been recommended before. Ironically I got my degree in Applied Linguistics. Loved the video! I have subscribed ❤️

[@belfastulster5838]

Amazing video!!! because of you I bought the book "English After RP", could you please make a video on the fleece diphthong?

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you, Bryan! Yes, FLEECE is tricky and deserves a video for sure.

[@GeorgiusNL]

I live in the eastern Netherlands and my family speaks Achterhoeks, a dialect of Dutch Low Saxon. I believe I've heard ejective consonants in Achterhoeks and other Low Saxon dialects as well (if not mistaken for aspirated consonants or something else)

[@tetramur8969]

I'm a non-native English speaker (my native language is Russian) and I noticed like a long time ago that I make an ejective "k" before "a" (like "u" in "cup") consistently. Very interesting video, I would like to see more videos about English

[@CatFish107]

So happy to have stumbled on this channel! I learned today the name of part of what was missing from my warped accent. Canadian who worked with many Brits and Aussies, resulting in some kind of strange accent not native to anywhere. Ejective consonants feel difficult for me to pronounce.

[@L8rCloud]

It’s great to see people working on their pronunciation. People today are LAZY in thought, action, grammar, spelling and speech. We all have a duty to strive for excellence. It was excellence that gave us all we have today and a lot of things we take for granted came with other people’s great sacrifice.

[@MichaelYutsis]

There are a lot of ejective stops in languages around Caucasus. For example, in the Georgian dish _khachapuri_ , _ch_ and _p_ are originally ejective. But I never knew they may occur in English, thank you very much!

[@nefertitimontoya]

This video just helped me so much studying for a production test! Thanks so much

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Glad it was useful!

[@billyboh78]

I'm from Italy, I've been learning and using English for the last 25 years and I've discovered today with your video that I always use the " k' " at the end of a word before another one starting with a vowel... and I have no idea why, since I've never even noticed it. Thank you :)

[@arjc5714]

My phonetics professor called me out on using an ejective at the end of ‘technique’ in undergrad, so I’ve noticed it off-and-on for the past 10 years, but I never caught the pre-vocalic position. Glad this vid was recommended to me.

[@ma5ticore]

I did lik'e this video. It was so interesting that I noticed your Mariinsky Theatre shirt only towards end. Hello from a new subscriber from Moscow.

[@ch3ru]

Fascinating! I rarely hear this in American English, and thinking about it it sounds like a particularly annoying or condescending affectation when I do 😅

[@mondoshiwan]

Yeah, when I'm angry, I use it to give misophonic people the itch.

[@bloosy1771]

This is the first video of yours that I have watched and it's totally fascinating. I'll be watching more! I love linguistics even though I've never studied it. It's so interesting that technically it doesn't matter whether (as English speakers) we use the ejective or not, and we probably make the sound (and listen to others making it too) without consciously knowing about it. Whereas I guess with the other languages mentioned, it actually does matter.

[@starry_lis]

THANK YOU, I CAN FINALLY PRONOUNCE GEORGIAN!

[@parryyotter]

I will never unhear this now.

[@spinfoilhat3087]

Thank you for making this! We now have this linked over at LearnNa'vi in our examples for sounds for new learners on how to make the ejectives. We have speakers from all over the world so it's a great resource to have when people aren't familiar with what ejectives are.

[@juana343]

Amazing, fun and as clear as water !!! There is so much to learn on your videos:) I`m sharing it on Fb so that it keeps going Thank you Geoff!!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks so much Stella

[@Lee_River]

Aha! I'd been trying to work out why some of my final plosives sound "funny" - it turns out that I use these ejective consonants regularly in words like "mop" and "clock" at the end of a sentence and some other contexts. In fact, if saying the word on its own, it takes some effort for me not to do that.

[@almostfm]

I spent 10 years in radio, and I've actually softened all my plosives to the point that I can't add them back in without working at it. (One of the things with working close to a microphone is that any plosives you make anywhere in a word jump out at you when you hear them.

[@kstar1489]

As a completely native speaker I never noticed this as something distinct until this video, probably because it’s so normal to me I didn’t even think about it as something other than pronouncing the word lol. now I don’t know if I’ll ever not notice it haha

[@neilgoodman2885]

>>Professor: YOU ARE THE BEST. Your lectures brighten my otherwise terrible day. I even get to use my spelling dictionary more frequently. I won't try to weave a pun on "gotten" into this compliment here, but I have gotten very fond of you! >>Respectfully Serene, NHG. 😄 I just noticed I'm watching you twice HAHAHAHA, In Spanish: jajaja!

[@thomasdarcio7143]

Amazing piece of common vulgarisation. I wish half of my professors put half the effort to self contain and clarirify their topics. thx alot for your work sir.

[@wabc2336]

Very interesting, thank you. I kept reading about these ejectives in Hausa, Korean and Lakota. Thanks for explaining how to pronounce them It's particularly interesting to me bc i've studied Arabic, Chinese, Romance, and Indian languages and i never knew of this sound, but then this sound is in various languages across the world from Korean to Hausa to Lakota and even English

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks for commenting. I'm glad if it was useful!

[@Albukhshi]

What's interesting to me is that Arabic's pharyngeal sounds (aka emphatics) used to be ejectives: this was standard to Proto-Semitic. But this was thousands of years ago. If you want Semitic languages with these sounds still (more or less) intact, you should look up Tigrinya, or Mehri, or some of the other non-Arabic Semitic Languages in Yemen, Eritrea and Ethiopia.

[@sheep4483]

I realize this is over a year old but I just had to make a correction, Korean doesn't have ejectives (perhaps there's a particular dialect but not to my knowledge), as a learner I'd thought that as well at first because there's an old romanization system that (very confusingly) uses p', k', t' to represent "tense consonants," which're basically just geminated consonants, pronounced strongly, without aspiration

[@asdic888]

@@sheep4483 That had me scratching my head.

[@Zariel_999]

@@sheep4483 in my korean class, the teacher specifically told us not to use ejectives as they could be confused with the 'euh' vowel at the end of a word.

[@ejdaly1993]

As a native English speaker I never realised this was a thing. While watching I was convinced I couldn’t do it at all until you started explaining hard attacks then I realised that it did naturally happen for me with most of the example phrases. Mind blown 🤯 Thank you for such an interesting video!

[@Fledermausmann]

Probably a bad time to note that Special K refers to Ketamine in some places... Also surprised that Dr Lindsay didn't use Alan Rickman as an example since he was fairly famous for using ejectives in his speech!!

[@kilgoretrout4491]

In others it’s breakfast cereal

[@FungeHucker]

Ketamine can be pretty great!

[@hhyten]

I've watched 5 of your videos this morning (so far). For my tastes, you're doing absolutely everything right in your videos in terms of information content and presentation. I studied languages in my youth but am definitely not a linguist, more of a lazy enthusiast. But beyond all that, you're consistently hitting some magic tone that makes me love you the way I do Chris Hayes on MSNBC. Very hard to define, but surely "a thing." I'm looking forward to viewing more, as I have lik'ed and subscribed.

[@AbenZin1]

Well I've never noticed this before and now I won't be able to stop hearing it. Thanks.

[@fredneecher1746]

I am a native speaker and have been for quite a long time, and I have honestly never heard anyone make this sound. How fascinating to discover this new allophone of /k/!

[@livrowland171]

Never noticed, do you mean? I never noticed either, interesting video

[@Relaxinghypnoasmr]

Strangely this helped me understand a Russian sound I’ve been struggling to learn. At the end of some words there’s a ь sound that has been described to me by a native Russian speaker as a palettization of the tongue. But when learning on duo lingo, you have to speak aloud for exercises and the AI says if you get it right, and I found the way to get it to accept is to make a harder ejective sound.

[@BunniBeshara]

This was something we were forced to do in concert choir, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop doing it. Lol 😂

[@WindInMyWings]

The fact the first example was a clip from Citation Needed / Tom Scott warms my heart

[@DaleTrevors]

Wow. I didn't even realize that such a phenomenon exists. This earned my subscription :)