1. Aspirated Sounds in English
Jordi Riba
Nil Carreras
Úrsula Pérez

2. What is aspiration in phonetics?
The noise that is made when air escapes after a plosive consonant sound

3. When does aspiration occur in the English language?
Aspiration in English is only found in three consonant sounds:
/p/, /t/ and /k/ sounds which written language are transcribed with the consonants:
p, t, k/c

4. The English letter t, unlikely many other languages, it is not dental, you must not let your tongue touch your teeth when you make the English t
English t has another characteristic which is called affrication, this means that inside the English /t/ sound there is a little /s/ sound.

5. *In English aspirations do not come at the end of the word
Aspiration can occur:
At the beginning of a word:
Pit, Cat
At the beginning of a stressed syllable:
Apart, Attire
*In English aspirations do not come at the end of the word

6. Why is aspiration normally a problem for learners of English?
Because of the absence of aspiration in many languages:
*Most languages in the world such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, Finnish or Estonian do not have any aspirated consonant sounds like in English.

7. Basic rules for /p t k/ in Spanish:
/p t k/ are not aspirated in any position:
Tanto [‘ta n.to], not [‘tʰ an. tʰ o]
Poca [‘po.ka], not [‘pʰo.kʰa]
Exception! Aspiration only appears in some varieties from Andalucía. Example:
¡Está aquí!   [esˈtaaˈki]
[eʔˈtʰaːˈki]

10. The place of articulation of English /t/ is alveolar while in Spanish /t/ is dental.
Phonetic transcriptions either treat it by rule or they show it specifically.
Try saying:
“Tom tells Teri to talk to Tammy”
“Tomás tiene tantos tomates”
[‘tʰan.tʰas] vs [tan.tas]

11. Would you like to know how to switch on and practice the aspirated consonant sounds in English?
Activity 1
Place your hand in front of your mouth and say an English word with an aspirated consonant
If you are pronouncing the aspirated consonant correctly you should feel the air flow on your hand

12. Activity 2
Take a tissue or a sheet of paper and place it in front of your face as shown in this picture

13. Now start pronouncing English words which contain the aspirated consonant sounds /p/, /t/, /k/
If you are pronouncing the aspirated consonant sounds correctly, the tissue should move due to the air flow produced.

14. Let’s put it into practice!
With the sound /p/
pen, pop, pear, pun, pan, pale, pardon, pie
With the sound /t/
ten, top, too, test, tape, tuna, tell, ton

15. With the sound /k/
kite, cake, kit, cup, can, cape, cost, care

16. Tokyo: [th]okyo / [t]okyo
English native speakers who are learning a foreign language which does not have aspirated consonants can also put into practice the same technique with the tissue in order to practice how to turn off aspiration
Tokyo: [th]okyo / [t]okyo
Toulouse: [th]oulouse/ [t]oulouse

17. References
Klatt, Dennis H "Voice Onset Time, Frication, and Aspiration in Word-Initial Consonant Clusters." Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 18:
Klee, Carol A. and Andrew Lynch El español en contacto con otras lenguas [Spanish in Contact with Other Languages]. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Weinreich, Uriel Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York.
Williams, Lee "The Voicing Contrast in Spanish." Journal of Phonetics 5:

18. Thanks for your attention