T, P, K: Final Consonants as Stops

There are three cases in which unvoiced consonants can serve as a stop at the end of a word, rather than being pronounced as a separate sound.  This happens when the word is connected to the following in pronunciation.

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I'd like to answer a question I recently received.  "When I'm linking words, I tend to voice unvoiced consonants if they are followed by a voiced consonant.  For example, 'I like that'.  I say 'lige'.  My question is, is this right or not?"  The answer is no, it is not correct to voice the unvoiced consonant.  However, the kk consonant sound [] is one of three consonant sounds, the kk, pp, and tt, all unvoiced, that does something different when it is linked to a voiced consonant.

What these three sounds do when they are followed by voiced consonants in a linking situation, is they act more as stops than as consonants themselves.  The sound is not fully pronounced voiced or unvoiced.  So for example, the question that you posed, I like that.  I like - everything in the mouth and tongue moves into position for the K sound without, kk, releasing air to make that K sound.  I like that.  Rather than releasing the air, the mouth simply forms the position then for the TH sound [] and goes into the next word.  I like that.  The reason for that is if there was a strong kk sound, there would be no way for it to link to the th following consonant sound.  I like that.  And of course as we know in American English, linking is very important.  I like that.

I've already done some blog entries on this particular case with T, but I will throw just one more example out there:  Doesn't this look nice?  Doesn't - the tongue moves into the T position - Doesn't this look nice? - without doesn'T, making that sharp T sound.

The third unvoiced consonant for which this is true is the P consonant sound.  Pp.  So when this sound is followed by and linked to a voiced consonant, 'flip-', the mouth moves into position without releasing the air to complete the sound.  Flip that card.  Flip - that card.  This is an excellent question and certainly something to keep in mind as you practice linking words.