If you looked at the first word, started and believe that it gets broken down like this, star-ted, you would be correct! And for the second word, stopped? Stop-ped? Nope! That’s not correct. Although it may appear to be a two-syllable word, it is not.
Pronunciation help!!
Are you comfortable pronouncing the following words?
- Started
- Stopped
- Loved
If you looked at the first word, started and believe that it gets broken down like this, star-ted, you would be correct! And for the second word, stopped? Stop-ped? Nope! That’s not correct. Although it may appear to be a two-syllable word, it is not.
In this case, because the final sound of the verb stop in its base form is `p`, or a voiceless sound, what we hear in the past tense is `t` or <stopt>
How about Loved? Did you say lov-ed. Again, this would be a mistake, but instead of the final sound being `t`, as in stopped, because in this case the final sound of love in the base form is `v`, or a voiced sound, we hear `d` in the past tense, or <lovd>.
This is something that I find many students are not aware of. What we are looking at are Regular Verbs in the past tense and the 3 different ways that they can sound depending on the final sound of the verb (Voiceless or Voiced) in its base form.
Here are a few more examples
ED T D
Wanted<wan-ted> Pushed<pusht> Travelled<trav-eld>
Landed<lan-ded> Kicked<kickt> Received<re-ceivd>
Translated<trans-la-ted> Jumped<jumpt> Delivered<de-li-verd>
I hope this helped<helpt> you understand a little more about how regular verbs are pronounced<pro-nounst> in the past tense. Take a look at this video that helps to explain the idea a little bit more, and is also good for listening practice. Please leave me comments and let me know what areas you are having difficulty with and I will blog about them for you.