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Japan flagYûichiro
Do native English speakers make sounds from the throat when speaking English? I'm wondering how native speakers make sounds. That's one of my interests as well as a question I have. Thank you.

Answers · 12

1
Hello Yuicho. English is not known for articulating sounds in the throat — we generally use our lips and tongues. The only two guttural sounds in English are the H and the glottal stop /ʔ/. By way of comparison, the Japanese H tends to be pronounced with the back of the tongue in the back of the mouth, except before /u/, where it is pronounced with the lips. The glottal stop is not an actual phoneme in English, but you may hear it in slow speech at the beginning of a word that is spelled with an initial vowel. “To arrive” /tʊuʔəɹaiv/. On the other hand, you’re more likely to hear a linking consonant (from the previous word) or semi consonant in rapid speech /tʊwəɹaiv/. The glottal stop is often used instead of a T at the end of a syllable. This is true for most speakers before /n/: written /ɹɪʔən/. Cockney accent takes this to an extreme…. Here’s a very useful website for you to see video and animations about place of articulation: http://soundsofspeech.uiowa.edu/english/english.html If you have further questions, feel free to message me.
1
No, nothing like you see in French or Arabic coming from down in the throat. Some few words in English use the tongue but not really.
1
You can learn a lot about how sounds are made and how they can change by studying phonetics in particular. It's one of the more interesting subsets of linguistics that I think you might find enjoyable.
1
In my experience, most everything is determined by the placement of the tongue and shape of the lips.
0
Thank you everyone. I appreciate answers you gave me. I feel like I got tips to clarify the issue.

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