Glottal Stop ʔ

Some examples of when I say /ʔ/ are:

written /rIʔIn/
important /Im pɔrʔIn/
cat /kæʔ/
Hawaii /hə wayʔiy/

As you can see, the glottal stop doesn't have to be a reduction of /t/.

If you want to learn more about glottal stops, you can check out this link. It's a linguistics link, so it might not be for everyone.

Betty Bought a Bit of Bitter Butter

Here is an example of some variation on the reduction of /t/. This is a famous tongue twister in English. When I say this tongue twister, I reduce most of the /t/ sounds to /d/, but there is a part of London where people reduce it to /ʔ/.

Betty bought a bit of butter,

But the bit of butter Betty bought was bitter.

So Betty bought a better bit of butter,

To make the bitter butter better

To hear the way I say this tongue twister, listen to this video.



To hear me saying it with all glottal stops, listen to this video.
(Please remember, I'm not from London- the part that says it with glottal stops or the part that doesn't!!)



Here are some links to others doing Betty Bought and you can listen and see how different native speakers say the t's in this tongue twister.

Hendrix
Lucas (a little boy)
Unknown (He's fast!)
Caleb & Colorado Snowboarding Clerk (This one starts out fast but slows down, so be patient as you watch.)