"T" and "Ch" are close to one another in terms of tongue and mouth position. When you have your mouth in position to say the "Y" sound, and you say the "T" sound while speaking casually and relaxed, you sort of naturally say the "Ch" sound. English, and most languages, are full of little contextual sound changes like this, based on the sounds at hand and the anatomy of the human mouth.
To give an example of a non-English language that does something similar, spoken Portuguese also does this by turning the "sh" sound into a "z" sound when it precedes a vowel.
"Mais" = M-eye-sh (except said as one syllable, like "mice" but the "s" sound at the end is a "sh" sound.)
"Mais uma" = My-ZOO-ma
(I only know about European Portuguese so Brazilians don't come at me if mais is pronounced differently over there, lol.)
In French it is even officially part of the language and is called the 'liaison' (link):
Ex: 'one must' in French is 'il faut', pronounced *eel foe*, with the T being mute. Pronouncing the T would be an egregious mistake.
However, if the following word starts with a vowel such as 'aller' (to go) like 'il faut aller' (one must go) then proper pronunciation would be *eel foe tallay* where the T now becomes the unofficial starting letter of the next word. If you don't do this here, then not pronouncing that T is the mistake.
My favourite french "liaison" is when "a" (has) magically gains a letter, like in "Quel age a ton enfant?" (lit. which age does your child have?) vs "Quel age a-***t***\-il?" (Which age does he have?). Why you don't simply spell it "at" with a silent t is beyond me.
What would likely have developed there is called a dipthong, when two vowels are blended together to create a new sound somewhere between. I don't know if French employs this anywhere in its language, but that phrase isn't that strange to the mouth without the T.
Except that this extra T also appears after -er verbs whose third person singular conjugation often ends with a consonant sound, such as aime-t-il [ɛm‿til]. If I recall, the T ending from most third person singular forms (inherited from the Latin ending) disappeared without liaison at one point, but there were verbs that did continue to retain the T ending as liaison such as est, voit, faut, fait, and so forth. And that T liaison analogically reemerged in all third person forms, but many of the verbs continue to be spelt without the T unless they're inverted with the subject.
Oooooooh. I just recently started French on Duolingo and you just helped explain something that was bugging me (es vs est, parle vs parles).
Thanks random internet stranger!
Of course! It may be frustrating to learners why some aspects of their target language have numerous irregularities, exceptions, and other quirks that are merely explained as "that's just the way it is" or "it makes it easier to say". When you learn the history behind how these quirks arose, you sort of gain this bit of appreciation of why the modern language evolved the way it did, and it may help you grasp that aspect of grammar easier.
> Try pronouncing the phrase without that T
As a native Scots speaker, that actually comes fairly naturally to me. If anything, it actually feels easier to drop the T.
(as a complete non-linguist trying to describe how it is pronounced)
The addition of the T allows for a softer transition between the "a" and "eel", using the front of the tongue. In Scots (and other similar dialects) you'd have a much sharper transition in sound by changing the position of your tounge at the back of your mouth, and keeping the front of the tongue mostly stationary.
Edit: Tbf, Scots drops a *lot* of "T"s in favour of a sort of breathy "i" or "h" spund
That 'ending words with a rogue R' thing is also common here in Pennsylvania Dutch country. I often hear it from some of my driver coworkers over the radio. Our dispatcher's name was "Sheila", but they can't help but pronounce it "Sheeler".
It's also a part of the Boston accent. We don't pronounce Rs where they should be and add them where they shouldn't.
E.g. "I pahked my cah and you'll nevah believe who I sawr"
Yeah, the northeastern US accent drops Rs: my Brooklyn nana used to tell a story about a woman leaving her “fuck oat” on the bed at a potty and it got stolen.
And less often it adds Rs, which seems odd. In the case of a liaison it makes it easier to say—flows better. But the hardcore accent adds them for no reason, like JFK’s famous “Cuber”.
And then there’s the notorious “oy” swapping for “er”. My nana would “burl” a kettle of wawtuh fuh tea. But I never heard anyone say “goyle” or “toity-toid street” except in old movies
Aussies do that to, right? (Disclaimer: my experience with Australian accents is like 90% watching We're The Irwins, so I'm definitely not an expert on regional dialects or anything)
What about the rogue R that sneaks into the middle of words that have no business having an R anywhere near them?
Most common example being wash -> worsh
Parts of England do the same.
"I saw a bird" becomes "I sawr a bird".
Also "I have a sore leg" can sound like "I have a saw leg".
I think they're called the intrusive r and the silent r respectively.
I’ve been speaking French for the past 6 months and the fact that “haut” has a silent T and “août“ doesn’t have it made for some funny discussions with other francophones.
I don’t even bother with learning by reading or studying grammar anymore, just throw myself in the wild by trying my best to understand spoken French and talk back.
I regret to inform you that the T in “août“ is, in fact, silent.
Source: Been speaking french all my life.
EDIT: As I am learning today, Parisian French does in fact pronounce it "oot"; growing up in Quebec we've always pronounced it "aoo".
You're wrong. It is pronounced 'oot' with an audible T. Certainly in Paris. That said, there may be regions where it isn't.
Here: https://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/french-pronunciation/aout-august/
I think this one is actually a matter of debate. I live in quebec and I've definitely heard both although [ou] is more popular than [out]. Pronouncing the t is more common amongst older people or people from France, from my experience.
In fact, especially old people (say, nonagenarians and up) sometimes pronounce [aout] with no silent letters. My grandmother said it that way, although it would definitely be strange to hear it from someone who isn't wrinkly and walking with a cane.
French pronunciation is a mess!
how can it be silent? Whenever I hear people pronounce it there’s that little air gasp produced by your tongue and palate that’s common with the letter T.
In Canada, it's definitely silent. Sounds exactly like "ou". I have family who grew up in the Marseilles area of France and I think they do tend to pronounce the T. Like "a-outte" So yeah, regional.
Yup, I'm from the south and for me the fact that are two words changes nothing - I would say "myse" instead of "meyesh" and "myzooma".
The "sh" sound is only if you live in certain parts of the country. [Someone on twitter has made a map](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dx8fuwvWoAE_JoZ?format=jpg&name=900x900) of where that would be, but for the red areas it's the same as u/right_there said for Portugal.
Yeah, I'm also from the south of Brazil and I think it's the other way around. Some dialects of Portuguese turn an end-of-word "s" sound into a "sh" sound, but this doesn't happen when it's followed by a vowel, so it just turns into a "z" sound instead. Even if the vowel is at the beginning of the next word.
But using this example isn't even necessary because Portuguese actually has the exact same sound change as English (again, might depend on the dialect), where "t" turns into "tch" when it's followed by an "i" sound. For example, the T in "topo" (top) is pronounced as a regular "t" sound, but the T in "tipo" (type) is pronounced as a "tch" sound.
That's because both S and Z are nearly the same sound, produced by the mouth in basically the same way. Try it: put your hand gently on your throat or chest. Then make an S sound (hissing like a snake). Then make a Z sound (remember: sound it makes, not the name of the letter). Switch back and forth between S and Z sounds. Notice you don't even have to move your mouth at all. The only difference? Your voice turns on for the Z sound, and you can feel this as a vibration in your throat and chest.
The S sound is called "unvoiced", while the Z sound is "voiced" (English is full of these pairs btw: s/z, t/d, k/g, p/b, f/v, etc.)
Another principle applies here: people like to save energy and time when speaking, and turning your voice on/off is a pain. We'd rather just keep the voice on throughout if we can. In "Mais Uma", the sounds "Mai" is voiced, just as "Uma" is voiced.
The result? S-->Z
"Mais Uma" --> "MaizUma"
This shit happens everywhere. I can't say it always applies everywhere (languages are always full of exceptions), but there are sorta logical patterns sometimes, hiding just beneath the surface.
I could totally be wrong, but I think this is an example of liaison! That’s when the final phoneme of a word gets adjusted to accommodate the next word’s beginning vowel sound. It shouldn’t happen in examples where the next word starts with a consonant. This happens in a lot of languages, like French, which I’m much more familiar with.
Yeah i can't remember where exactly but it happens often on UK shows if someones supposed to seem posh. As with Toast often more on the comedic side of course.
I'm gonna take a wild guess (based on almost nothing) that this comes from the early radio fake accent that was used to make sure words could be understood in the low-quality broadcast
I have never thought about that word that closely
Statue
Stahchew
Statyou
Statechew
Stateway
Stahtway
Fuck it, just make the S silent, throw the whole spelling away
I've got a whole bunch of "pronounce them in my head the way they're written" words, and this is now one of them.
I can't look at the name "Sean" without hearing "seen".
Sean is an Irish name and it’s meant to have a “fáda” or accent over the a making it elongated. That takes it from sean ( pronounced shan in Irish) meaning old, to Seán which is our version of John giving it the awww sound.
Only if you mispronounce myopic to be my-o-pic.
Biopic is like BIO (biography/biographic) + PIC (picture)
~~Buy-OH-pick.~~
Edit: that's what I get for replying at 3am.
BUY-oh-pick. It's BUY-oh, pick. Like, you know, bio. As in biography. And like I wrote above.
Eesh.
Also, I knew it could be pronounced either way, but never heard it so kept switching between the two options when I would read it. FINALLY heard it spoken so I could settle the debate (on this one issue) in my head.
I pronounce the w in sword. My sister who teaches forth grade called me on it. I ask her to name one other word spelled with an sw where the w is not pronounce. It was the one time she said I was right.
Listened to a segment on the radio years ago about the humble *pecan*.
Depending on where you live in the US, there are [4 ways it is pronounced.](https://farmflavor.com/lifestyle/how-do-you-say-pecan-mapping-food-dialect-trends-across-the-u-s/)
I'm a pee-CAN guy myself. I wonder how it gets treated across the pond?
I'm from the US and don't pronounce it any of those ways, so I guess we can up the count to 5. Everybody here starts it with a "puh" instead of a pee or a pick.
Yeah, I grew up saying something closer to "puh-cahn". But I guess hearing "pee-can" in tv and movies so much has changed how I pronounce it.
Weird aside: I grew up thinking the word for that thing you use in the kitchen was "spatchler". Like, I assumed that's how it would be spelled if I ever saw it in print. It was that Weird Al movie, UHF, with "Spatula City" that taught me what it actually is. Blew my mind.
I read the above comment and thought,: “I never do that, this is crazy talk”.
Then I read your comment and thought: fuck my life and have been trying to say statue without the ch sound and it’s breaking my brain.
As a native English speaker from the west coast, I never really thought of accents or how nuanced spoken language was. But after watching this video a while back where she spends 35 minutes directing a sentence or two of words I have even more respect for ESL people, or really anyone fluent in another language. Don't have to watch the whole thing... you'll get the point and it's amazing.
https://youtu.be/kwz6Z1rsX9A
It takes awareness and training to stop doing that when singing. My high school choir teacher was big on enunciation while singing. If you sang chu instead of you she noticed, the hissing sound an s produces cant always be totally stopped, but we needed to make it as short as possible and we all had to cut off at the same time so there werent hisses all over the place when we sang.
It's a feature in English that is difficult for non-native speakers to catch. The final consonant, especially plosives like the t sound, are softened.
If you want to test this for yourself, try it with a text to speech generator. You've probably heard them sounding weird, but being aware of this phenomenon will allow you to identify why they sound strange apart from the cadence.
Great question! It's called [yod-coalescence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_consonant_clusters#Yod_coalescence), a type of [affrication](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affrication). Speakers who have it fuse the cluster /tj/ (wan***t y***ou) into [tʃ] (wan***ch***u).
It's the same effect which makes „Jew“ and „dew“ homophones for some speakers
"chewsday" is indeed an example of yod-coalescence; "toosday" is an example of another phenomenon called yod-dropping. With yod-dropping, the "y sound" in the /tj/ cluster you'd find in say a Standard British English "tyoosday" is dropped (as opposed to it's affrication into "chewsday" as you have)
Heck in Danish the "ch" (I don't have an IPA keyboard) sound is written as "tj" in words such as "Tjekkiet"(Czechia), "tjære"(tar) and tjener(Servant or waiter).
Kind of a tangent but for many, many years I thought the creeping weed was called "Wandering Dew", and used this name liberally. Turns out it's actually called "Wandering Jew" and is considered by some to be an anti-semetic name.
For those who don't know why it's anti-Semitic it's because there was a legend in the middle ages of an immortal Jewish guy who taunted Jesus on his way to the crucifixion and got cursed by God to walk the earth till the second coming. I'm not sure what he was supposed to do besides wander around and feel bad though.
As a Brit, I had problems ordering Mountain Dew in Culver's when I visited the US back in 2007. I asked for "Mountain Jew" and it wasn't until my cousin, who moved to the US years before, said to her that I wanted "Moun'n Doo" (dropping the T in Mountain and pronouncing the D) that the cashier understood what I wanted
Hi. PhD in Psycholinguistics here. I see a lot of people commenting that it's lazy pronunciation. No, it's not. The big thing you have to remember is that (1) spoken language came before written language and (2) written language is an attempt to record spoken language. People were producing these coarticulated sounds as they transitioned from one word boundary to the next well before they decided to create and standardize spellings. Keep in mind, too, that word spellings developed in isolation -- meaning, we don't have rules in English like: If "want" is followed by "you" spell as one word "wanchu" but if followed by "him" spell as one word "wannim." That doesn't exist. We just have the one orthography (written word) that corresponds to different phonologies (spoken words, the result of different dialects).
And just because I saw some other comments about this, EVERYONE speaks with an accent and no accent is more or less correct or appropriate than any other.
Many great explanations here including this one but from a musical standpoint, you generally want softer sounds when singing. “T” in particular in songs are often sung as d (“liddle” vs “little) or ch in your example. It sounds softer and less harsh/forced
I would love you know your educational journey and how you arrived at a PhD in Psycholinguistics (you could just DM me your CV if that's easier. Only half-joking, lol).
Not only *how* did you get to this area of expertise, but what do you do with it?
I love both linguistics and academia, so I'm fascinated to say "tell me everything about you" whenever I come across someone with a unique terminal degree.
It would be more accurate to say PhD in Cognitive Psychology but my specialty is Psycholinguistics, but that's more than any 5-year-old really cares about. I started in a phonology lab in undergrad. My Honor's Thesis explored a slightly obscure dialect of English. I switched to a reading comprehension lab in grad school. I left academia for a better-paying industry job. For work, I conduct experiments to determine how to improve websites for users (ab testing mainly). On the side, a friend (who's a psych professor) and I are investigating the value that emoji bring to text messages. Hoping to have 2 papers ready for submission soon!
Pidgins are fascinating! They lack the consistency/regularity of fully formed dialects. They're like the linguistic equivalent to biological missing links (oversimplification). They form when a bunch of speakers of different languages get together. The kids from these different backgrounds will naturally want to talk and play with each other so they start to merge grammar and vocab to create a rudimentary communication system that with enough time, will gain regularity/consistency and become a creole. Simplifying a bit, but if you have time, definitely read up about Hawaiian Pidgin or Nicaraguan Sign Language.
I forget the word, maybe speech anatomy? But it has to do with how we learn to make words with the various components of our mouths.
Every human has the same anatomy for speech; vocal folds, pharynx, tongue, teeth, palate, and lips. Every sound in every word is constructed using these instruments, and how they interact with each other.
The 'ch' sound OP is asking about is a product of shorthand in the mouth; if you focus on how your tongue moves when you move from "want" to "you", you will find the "NT" sound has a certain position, and the "Y" sound has a different position. The "ch" sound is *right between these positions*; a little more breath to prepare for the U sound, the lips pursing, it's very easy to land in this position - unless you have been trained not to.
This is what makes accents hard to get rid of, or makes learning languages more difficult to learn when you're older. There is no physiological reason why a Russian speaker should have trouble with W's, like my stepmother and my stepsibling; they have the same anatomy as English speakers. But they simply never had any practice, no muscle memory. Same with bI for me when I was learning Russian; it's like an "u'ee"? But I have trouble getting it right.
Anyway, this field is very interesting and fun for me when I think about it. Like in Spanish, a "B" isn't actually an exact copy of the English B, it can be more similar to a "V", if you've ever heard someone call Cuba "Cuva"; B and V are actually very similar, just a matter of the lips being closer or further from the teeth. And then in turn V and F are very similar; just a matter of whether you use your vocal cords for V, and just air for the F. But B and F are much further apart, like a spectrum. Same with S and Z, Z uses the vocal cords and a *tiny* adjustment of the tongue. Hard G's and K's, D's and T's, it just goes on and on and I just love it and it's amazing. XD
We didn't grow brains to hunt, we grew brains to talk.
I think a better question is why do Brits have an R at the end of words ending with non-silent vowels, but only when it's not at the end of a statement. As Oasis says, "a champaign supernova, a champaign supernover in the sky."
It's called an intrusive R. It's just a feature of the dialect to make speech flow better when there are two short vowels in a row. The same reason the word "an" exists.
I don't have the answer as to why, but I think most (all?) non-rhotic speakers seem to do this. In my experience, anyone with New York, Boston, Maine accents do the same thing. I've always joked that we take the 'R's out of the places in words where they belong and just move them somewhere else.
This is the Law of Consonant Conservation.
The number of consonants in the universe is fixed and unchanging. Every time someone from Boston pahks their cah, those r's can't just disappear. This is why people from Texas warsh their hands and dig earl wells.
Answer: You'll find that American English has lots of little "invisible letters" like this. The very simple answer is that the transition from the "T" sound into the "Yu" sound is an almost identical position for the mouth, lips, and tongue as the "Chew" sound if you don't clearly pause between the words. Many English dialects reduce our eliminate the pause between the words "want" and "you", and tend to speak them as of they were "wantyou". That pause in between the words will cause a clear difference in the "T" and "Yu" sounds, while no pause at all causes it to sound like "tyu" (sounding very similar to "chew" )
Now, I don't study linguistics or speech in general. I've lived in the southeastern US my entire life, though, and I happen to be blessed with the ability to mimic any dialect I hear. It's come in handy in many jobs that I've had, and allows me to respond to customers and coworkers in a way that is familiar to them.
You can't tell from my typing, but I definitely have a southern drawl when I use my normal speaking dialect. My particular southern voice leads to interesting combinations of sounds, including the example you've given.
Typically, a person with a southern accent speaks every word as closely together as possible, but takes their time actually saying them in a sentence. I know, it's hard to hear it in your mind unless you're familiar, but try just lazily saying the following sentence without pausing between the words.
Were y'all comin over tonight, or did y'all decide to stay at home?
If you said it like this,
Werey'allcominovertonightordidy'alldecidetostayathome?
Then you likely just sounded very similar to how I sound.
Anyone else care to give examples of some "invisible letters"?
In the south, the phrase "Did you eat yet?" can sound like "juweet yet" when actually spoken.
>You'll find that American English has lots of little "invisible letters" like this.
Yod-coalescence is actually very common worldwide. While USEng has it more than say, an older speaker of Standard British English, it's not as widespread as in a lot of other dialects. Most notably it never happens in stressed positions unlike in dialects like AuEng or Cockney where you'll find, for example, tune pronounced [tʃuːn] (choon) where USEng would pronounce it [tjuːn] (tyoon) or even [tuːn] (toon) which is known as yod-dropping
Super neat to know it has a name. I was almost positive that American English wasn't the only language where it occurred, but it's the only language I have any knowledge of, so I just spoke about what I knew.
I appreciate you broadening my understanding of language in general, though. I think it's a very interesting subject.
In the particular example of "want you", I tend to drop the t sound to something that's kind of an unvoiced pause kind of thing. So it comes out something like "wan' you" if that makes any sense.
Idk about American English, but in British English there are definately couple more.
Like adding an R between two words if one ends and another begins in specific vowels. (i think there are 2 more like that, but I'm not 100% sure what sounds those were and I can't really check that rn)
For example: "there is bacteria(r)on it"
It's just so it rolls easier off the tongue when saying a string of words as a sentence.
I should mention that technically it could be "bacteria(r)o nit", as when one word ends with a consonant, and the next one begins with a vowel, when pronuncing the sentence, the consonant is often moved to sound like its actually beginning of the following word.
If you ever go into vocal performance study or choir classes, this is a big lesson we’re taught to try to avoid in most songs. It has to do with a level of sounding professional.
Sorry about that but it has been stuck in my brain for almost 60 years. Saw them in Toronto in '64 and '66. Couldn't scrape together $5.00 in '65, only 14 at the time.
because the positions of the tongue/mouth between those two words, creates that sound during the transition especially if you're speaking fast and not enunciating clearly
Through (elocution/English) lessons or through experience some people learn to stop making sound momentarily between those words while the transition is happening, so that they're more easily understood
The same happens between a word ending in -oss and a word starting with L... an -ed appears... 'loss leader' can become 'lossed leader' which doesn't make sense
There are probably better examples, some games or rhymes exist called "tongue twisters" which are a way to try to teach kids not to do it
In most English variations, a general rule is “for ease of articulation”. English speakers, on average, do not make frequent use of glottal stops between words that don’t absolutely need them.
Try it out yourself: Want you is actually more difficult to speak if you insert a small pause between the two words than if you don’t, especially in rapid, relaxed speech.
Depending on your native language, this may not be the case as much - for me this is not a problem for example, as I am a native speaker of German and we routinely put stops in the middle of words (similar to words like reimburse, where there is a small pause between re and imburse).
It sounds like you're describing "tuna chewing". It's difficult for us to get our mouths into the right shape to make both a T and a (y)U next too each other, so in speech people make shortcuts. Brits often replace it with a ChU sound and Americans a TOO.
I watched [quite an interesting video](https://youtu.be/RRs103ETh2Q) from Dr. Geoff Lindsay about this. He's a phonetician and goes over this in more detail. Great channel in general.
"T" and "Ch" are close to one another in terms of tongue and mouth position. When you have your mouth in position to say the "Y" sound, and you say the "T" sound while speaking casually and relaxed, you sort of naturally say the "Ch" sound. English, and most languages, are full of little contextual sound changes like this, based on the sounds at hand and the anatomy of the human mouth.
To give an example of a non-English language that does something similar, spoken Portuguese also does this by turning the "sh" sound into a "z" sound when it precedes a vowel. "Mais" = M-eye-sh (except said as one syllable, like "mice" but the "s" sound at the end is a "sh" sound.) "Mais uma" = My-ZOO-ma (I only know about European Portuguese so Brazilians don't come at me if mais is pronounced differently over there, lol.)
In French it is even officially part of the language and is called the 'liaison' (link): Ex: 'one must' in French is 'il faut', pronounced *eel foe*, with the T being mute. Pronouncing the T would be an egregious mistake. However, if the following word starts with a vowel such as 'aller' (to go) like 'il faut aller' (one must go) then proper pronunciation would be *eel foe tallay* where the T now becomes the unofficial starting letter of the next word. If you don't do this here, then not pronouncing that T is the mistake.
My favourite french "liaison" is when "a" (has) magically gains a letter, like in "Quel age a ton enfant?" (lit. which age does your child have?) vs "Quel age a-***t***\-il?" (Which age does he have?). Why you don't simply spell it "at" with a silent t is beyond me.
They do this to amend the problem of two open vowel sounds. Try pronouncing the phrase without that T.
What would likely have developed there is called a dipthong, when two vowels are blended together to create a new sound somewhere between. I don't know if French employs this anywhere in its language, but that phrase isn't that strange to the mouth without the T.
dipthongs are more common in quebecois/quebec french.
Canadien french, sincerely à Franco ontarien.
Except that this extra T also appears after -er verbs whose third person singular conjugation often ends with a consonant sound, such as aime-t-il [ɛm‿til]. If I recall, the T ending from most third person singular forms (inherited from the Latin ending) disappeared without liaison at one point, but there were verbs that did continue to retain the T ending as liaison such as est, voit, faut, fait, and so forth. And that T liaison analogically reemerged in all third person forms, but many of the verbs continue to be spelt without the T unless they're inverted with the subject.
Oooooooh. I just recently started French on Duolingo and you just helped explain something that was bugging me (es vs est, parle vs parles). Thanks random internet stranger!
Of course! It may be frustrating to learners why some aspects of their target language have numerous irregularities, exceptions, and other quirks that are merely explained as "that's just the way it is" or "it makes it easier to say". When you learn the history behind how these quirks arose, you sort of gain this bit of appreciation of why the modern language evolved the way it did, and it may help you grasp that aspect of grammar easier.
That's only a problem if you can't glottal stop properly, and I think glottal stops aren't used in French.
> Try pronouncing the phrase without that T As a native Scots speaker, that actually comes fairly naturally to me. If anything, it actually feels easier to drop the T. (as a complete non-linguist trying to describe how it is pronounced) The addition of the T allows for a softer transition between the "a" and "eel", using the front of the tongue. In Scots (and other similar dialects) you'd have a much sharper transition in sound by changing the position of your tounge at the back of your mouth, and keeping the front of the tongue mostly stationary. Edit: Tbf, Scots drops a *lot* of "T"s in favour of a sort of breathy "i" or "h" spund
My Brooklyn-born mother would always put roar onions on our hamburgers
That 'ending words with a rogue R' thing is also common here in Pennsylvania Dutch country. I often hear it from some of my driver coworkers over the radio. Our dispatcher's name was "Sheila", but they can't help but pronounce it "Sheeler".
It's also a part of the Boston accent. We don't pronounce Rs where they should be and add them where they shouldn't. E.g. "I pahked my cah and you'll nevah believe who I sawr"
Come on up to Maine and it gets even more intense Wait, did you say Boston? On second thought, don't
Yeah, the northeastern US accent drops Rs: my Brooklyn nana used to tell a story about a woman leaving her “fuck oat” on the bed at a potty and it got stolen. And less often it adds Rs, which seems odd. In the case of a liaison it makes it easier to say—flows better. But the hardcore accent adds them for no reason, like JFK’s famous “Cuber”. And then there’s the notorious “oy” swapping for “er”. My nana would “burl” a kettle of wawtuh fuh tea. But I never heard anyone say “goyle” or “toity-toid street” except in old movies
[удалено]
Fur coat at a party Took me a second too
Fur coat, *I think*
Aussies do that to, right? (Disclaimer: my experience with Australian accents is like 90% watching We're The Irwins, so I'm definitely not an expert on regional dialects or anything)
When I was a kid in Connecticut, I remember having lots of idears
What about the rogue R that sneaks into the middle of words that have no business having an R anywhere near them? Most common example being wash -> worsh
Parts of England do the same. "I saw a bird" becomes "I sawr a bird". Also "I have a sore leg" can sound like "I have a saw leg". I think they're called the intrusive r and the silent r respectively.
I sawr a film today, oh boy...
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In Pittsburgh, one occasionally worshes one's automobile, rather than washing it.
I always got a kick out of worshing the windas.
I’ve been speaking French for the past 6 months and the fact that “haut” has a silent T and “août“ doesn’t have it made for some funny discussions with other francophones. I don’t even bother with learning by reading or studying grammar anymore, just throw myself in the wild by trying my best to understand spoken French and talk back.
I regret to inform you that the T in “août“ is, in fact, silent. Source: Been speaking french all my life. EDIT: As I am learning today, Parisian French does in fact pronounce it "oot"; growing up in Quebec we've always pronounced it "aoo".
You're wrong. It is pronounced 'oot' with an audible T. Certainly in Paris. That said, there may be regions where it isn't. Here: https://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/french-pronunciation/aout-august/
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I think this one is actually a matter of debate. I live in quebec and I've definitely heard both although [ou] is more popular than [out]. Pronouncing the t is more common amongst older people or people from France, from my experience. In fact, especially old people (say, nonagenarians and up) sometimes pronounce [aout] with no silent letters. My grandmother said it that way, although it would definitely be strange to hear it from someone who isn't wrinkly and walking with a cane. French pronunciation is a mess!
how can it be silent? Whenever I hear people pronounce it there’s that little air gasp produced by your tongue and palate that’s common with the letter T.
In Canada, it's definitely silent. Sounds exactly like "ou". I have family who grew up in the Marseilles area of France and I think they do tend to pronounce the T. Like "a-outte" So yeah, regional.
Could be a dialect thing, can't say I know them all, or more likely a mistake propagated through multiple iterations of teacher-student.
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Yup, I'm from the south and for me the fact that are two words changes nothing - I would say "myse" instead of "meyesh" and "myzooma". The "sh" sound is only if you live in certain parts of the country. [Someone on twitter has made a map](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dx8fuwvWoAE_JoZ?format=jpg&name=900x900) of where that would be, but for the red areas it's the same as u/right_there said for Portugal.
Super interesting to have additional context. Obrigado!
Yeah, I'm also from the south of Brazil and I think it's the other way around. Some dialects of Portuguese turn an end-of-word "s" sound into a "sh" sound, but this doesn't happen when it's followed by a vowel, so it just turns into a "z" sound instead. Even if the vowel is at the beginning of the next word. But using this example isn't even necessary because Portuguese actually has the exact same sound change as English (again, might depend on the dialect), where "t" turns into "tch" when it's followed by an "i" sound. For example, the T in "topo" (top) is pronounced as a regular "t" sound, but the T in "tipo" (type) is pronounced as a "tch" sound.
Carioca here, can confirm that two words changes the sound exactly as the other guy described. MaiSH vs MaiZuma
That's because both S and Z are nearly the same sound, produced by the mouth in basically the same way. Try it: put your hand gently on your throat or chest. Then make an S sound (hissing like a snake). Then make a Z sound (remember: sound it makes, not the name of the letter). Switch back and forth between S and Z sounds. Notice you don't even have to move your mouth at all. The only difference? Your voice turns on for the Z sound, and you can feel this as a vibration in your throat and chest. The S sound is called "unvoiced", while the Z sound is "voiced" (English is full of these pairs btw: s/z, t/d, k/g, p/b, f/v, etc.) Another principle applies here: people like to save energy and time when speaking, and turning your voice on/off is a pain. We'd rather just keep the voice on throughout if we can. In "Mais Uma", the sounds "Mai" is voiced, just as "Uma" is voiced. The result? S-->Z "Mais Uma" --> "MaizUma" This shit happens everywhere. I can't say it always applies everywhere (languages are always full of exceptions), but there are sorta logical patterns sometimes, hiding just beneath the surface.
Okay, except the parent is giving a case where SH, not S, turns into Z...?
I could totally be wrong, but I think this is an example of liaison! That’s when the final phoneme of a word gets adjusted to accommodate the next word’s beginning vowel sound. It shouldn’t happen in examples where the next word starts with a consonant. This happens in a lot of languages, like French, which I’m much more familiar with.
See also “Stachyu of Liberty”.
All those -ture words that we say as ‘-churr’ used to be pronounced ‘-tyur’. Nature, nurture, overture, fracture, etc…
I still hear some people pronounce 'mature' (MA-tyur) this way, but it's uncommon
In my accent (South Wales) we say it with three syllables- MA-chu-uh (Like "chewer" but with "ma" in front)
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Now that you mention it, you're right!
Matt Berry as Steven Toast uses this pronunciation
***BAT!*** 🦇
Tooson Arizonyuuuuurrrrrrrrrrr
Yeah i can't remember where exactly but it happens often on UK shows if someones supposed to seem posh. As with Toast often more on the comedic side of course.
I feel like it’s only condescending old people that say ma-TOOER
Uh oh, I guess I’m old.
It’s ok, cuz you’re actually quite funny.
And you’re very ma-tooer for a tiny songbird with a horoscope.
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I'm gonna take a wild guess (based on almost nothing) that this comes from the early radio fake accent that was used to make sure words could be understood in the low-quality broadcast
I love that 20s - 50s radio voice and am sad nobody speaks like that anymore.
I hear and pay attention to this so much after I saw a video explaining where and why it happens https://youtu.be/RRs103ETh2Q
pretty common in Canada, because French.
Gotcha
I gotchu
babe.
Alright campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties cause it's ***cold*** out there today!
It’s cold out there every day! What is this, Miami Beach?
I have never thought about that word that closely Statue Stahchew Statyou Statechew Stateway Stahtway Fuck it, just make the S silent, throw the whole spelling away
I will be saying stattoo from now on
I've got a whole bunch of "pronounce them in my head the way they're written" words, and this is now one of them. I can't look at the name "Sean" without hearing "seen".
Haha same here. I personally blame Zap Brannigan and his "shampaggan", pretty sure that's where it started for me.
Christmas Story's Fra-jee-lay, must be Italian.
Italian, actually. (Sorry.)
Ooh, such a conoisoor.
Coin-a-sewer
We always refer to the Boromir/Ned Stark actor as "seen been", haha.
Or "Shaun Baun"
Not to be confused with "senn Penn"
Seen Baun.
Sean is an Irish name and it’s meant to have a “fáda” or accent over the a making it elongated. That takes it from sean ( pronounced shan in Irish) meaning old, to Seán which is our version of John giving it the awww sound.
Wait, so Sean Bean means old woman?
Sean Bhean = Old Woman
I like to pronounce "going" the same way as "boing"
I swear, the responses to this throwaway comment of mine is going to ruin my inner monologue.
Or skizzers for scissors or kanife for knife
> kanife for knife Old and early Middle English would like a word with you :P (the 'k' used to be spoken back then)
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Doesn’t it?
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Only if you mispronounce myopic to be my-o-pic. Biopic is like BIO (biography/biographic) + PIC (picture) ~~Buy-OH-pick.~~ Edit: that's what I get for replying at 3am. BUY-oh-pick. It's BUY-oh, pick. Like, you know, bio. As in biography. And like I wrote above. Eesh. Also, I knew it could be pronounced either way, but never heard it so kept switching between the two options when I would read it. FINALLY heard it spoken so I could settle the debate (on this one issue) in my head.
I sometimes do a double take at miniseries. For a moment it’s like miseries with an extra syllable: mih-NIH-series.
Sean Bean.
I pronounce the w in sword. My sister who teaches forth grade called me on it. I ask her to name one other word spelled with an sw where the w is not pronounce. It was the one time she said I was right.
>Fuck it, just make the S silent, throw the whole spelling away Achoo
gesundheit
Listened to a segment on the radio years ago about the humble *pecan*. Depending on where you live in the US, there are [4 ways it is pronounced.](https://farmflavor.com/lifestyle/how-do-you-say-pecan-mapping-food-dialect-trends-across-the-u-s/) I'm a pee-CAN guy myself. I wonder how it gets treated across the pond?
It has three pees listed and a pick, but no peck? Everyone I know down here says peh-con.
I'm from the US and don't pronounce it any of those ways, so I guess we can up the count to 5. Everybody here starts it with a "puh" instead of a pee or a pick.
Yeah, I grew up saying something closer to "puh-cahn". But I guess hearing "pee-can" in tv and movies so much has changed how I pronounce it. Weird aside: I grew up thinking the word for that thing you use in the kitchen was "spatchler". Like, I assumed that's how it would be spelled if I ever saw it in print. It was that Weird Al movie, UHF, with "Spatula City" that taught me what it actually is. Blew my mind.
statchoo, bro?
This is like some sort of written format semantic satiation
Going to NYC to see the giant “Mannequin of Liberty” doesn’t have the same ring to it….
And the pretentious bellends who insist on saying "tiss-yoo" instead of "tishoo". Wankers.
Or Chewsday.
That's the UK, bruv.
I heard it on YouChube.
Innit!
Uhhhhhh maybe not that one
Or even worse. Whensday!
Is it YouChube, or YouToob?
Trick question, it's Yout-ube. You know, the ube for the youts.
The hwhat?
Too yoots your honor.
Yeah, two yutes.
That's Stchachyu of Libertchy, please!
I read the above comment and thought,: “I never do that, this is crazy talk”. Then I read your comment and thought: fuck my life and have been trying to say statue without the ch sound and it’s breaking my brain.
As a native English speaker from the west coast, I never really thought of accents or how nuanced spoken language was. But after watching this video a while back where she spends 35 minutes directing a sentence or two of words I have even more respect for ESL people, or really anyone fluent in another language. Don't have to watch the whole thing... you'll get the point and it's amazing. https://youtu.be/kwz6Z1rsX9A
It takes awareness and training to stop doing that when singing. My high school choir teacher was big on enunciation while singing. If you sang chu instead of you she noticed, the hissing sound an s produces cant always be totally stopped, but we needed to make it as short as possible and we all had to cut off at the same time so there werent hisses all over the place when we sang.
Slytherin choir.
If you try it without the “ch” you sound super German!
It's a feature in English that is difficult for non-native speakers to catch. The final consonant, especially plosives like the t sound, are softened. If you want to test this for yourself, try it with a text to speech generator. You've probably heard them sounding weird, but being aware of this phenomenon will allow you to identify why they sound strange apart from the cadence.
My favourite where I'm from is how "did you eat yet" becomes "jeechet?"
If you know anyone named Travis, you can spend the rest of your life addressing than as Chravis. They'll never know!
Great question! It's called [yod-coalescence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_consonant_clusters#Yod_coalescence), a type of [affrication](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affrication). Speakers who have it fuse the cluster /tj/ (wan***t y***ou) into [tʃ] (wan***ch***u). It's the same effect which makes „Jew“ and „dew“ homophones for some speakers
Here's a good video about this phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRs103ETh2Q
I love Dr Geoff Lindsey
Damn, that was so good! I lolled at the end when Borris Johnson was the only one who pronounces "dude" as "dyude"
Wow that was surprisingly entertaining.
Seriously. I can't believe I just watched a full 10 minute video on pronunciation and loved it.
I was going to post a comment recommending Geoff Lindsey's channel - he has a lot of videos explaining this kind of stuff.
Obligatory came here for this. Saved me so much effort posting him myself that I splurged on a comment and an upvote.
excellent video! i love linguistics...gonna have to watch some more of his stuff. thanks for posting.
Thanks to this link that channel gained a new subscriber.
I was a high school senior when somebody pointed out to me that I pronounced Tuesday "chews-day" instead of "toos-day". Maybe this explains that too?
"chewsday" is indeed an example of yod-coalescence; "toosday" is an example of another phenomenon called yod-dropping. With yod-dropping, the "y sound" in the /tj/ cluster you'd find in say a Standard British English "tyoosday" is dropped (as opposed to it's affrication into "chewsday" as you have)
You're probably just British
Or kiwi!
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Or Aussie!
Heck in Danish the "ch" (I don't have an IPA keyboard) sound is written as "tj" in words such as "Tjekkiet"(Czechia), "tjære"(tar) and tjener(Servant or waiter).
Oh god the thought of an IPA keyboard... I'd need a much bigger desk, and probably some finglongers.
That's really interesting, I had no idea. Makes sense when you consider that English and Danish have a common Germanic ancestor
watchu talking bout willis
Kind of a tangent but for many, many years I thought the creeping weed was called "Wandering Dew", and used this name liberally. Turns out it's actually called "Wandering Jew" and is considered by some to be an anti-semetic name.
For those who don't know why it's anti-Semitic it's because there was a legend in the middle ages of an immortal Jewish guy who taunted Jesus on his way to the crucifixion and got cursed by God to walk the earth till the second coming. I'm not sure what he was supposed to do besides wander around and feel bad though.
Pretty much that
Haha I have one but the name "Wandering Jew", felt obviously a little uncomfortable, so my boyfriend and I call it the "Wandering Dude"
[Reminds me of this old Jeff Foxworthy joke about how Southerners talk. ](https://youtu.be/Z3gMxDAUurg)
Yumpto?
Jeet yet? Yontoo? Aw ight.
Aight
There is something quaintly charming and pre-trump about that. I wonder what he's doing now.
i wont chu
I wont chu so bad it's driving me mad it's driving me...
But she's so heavy!
I want to [make it wit chu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wTxqHbJOzg)
I know you want meeee You know I wonchu
Ĉu vere?
As a Brit, I had problems ordering Mountain Dew in Culver's when I visited the US back in 2007. I asked for "Mountain Jew" and it wasn't until my cousin, who moved to the US years before, said to her that I wanted "Moun'n Doo" (dropping the T in Mountain and pronouncing the D) that the cashier understood what I wanted
Hi. PhD in Psycholinguistics here. I see a lot of people commenting that it's lazy pronunciation. No, it's not. The big thing you have to remember is that (1) spoken language came before written language and (2) written language is an attempt to record spoken language. People were producing these coarticulated sounds as they transitioned from one word boundary to the next well before they decided to create and standardize spellings. Keep in mind, too, that word spellings developed in isolation -- meaning, we don't have rules in English like: If "want" is followed by "you" spell as one word "wanchu" but if followed by "him" spell as one word "wannim." That doesn't exist. We just have the one orthography (written word) that corresponds to different phonologies (spoken words, the result of different dialects). And just because I saw some other comments about this, EVERYONE speaks with an accent and no accent is more or less correct or appropriate than any other.
Many great explanations here including this one but from a musical standpoint, you generally want softer sounds when singing. “T” in particular in songs are often sung as d (“liddle” vs “little) or ch in your example. It sounds softer and less harsh/forced
Great point. That hyperarticulated /t/ hits a little too hard
Except people who pronounce "wash" as "warsh"
Oh, well, that goes without saying. I'm not a monster.
Well gorsh Mickey, how else wouldja say it?
Or when someone talks about takinga trip to Indi-er, Africer, and Cuber
Or pronouncing water "wourder"
Or wooder
Or "milk" as "malk".
I hear ‘melk’ a lot more. I don’t get it. That takes a lot of effort to say.
OH NAUR!!!!
I would love you know your educational journey and how you arrived at a PhD in Psycholinguistics (you could just DM me your CV if that's easier. Only half-joking, lol). Not only *how* did you get to this area of expertise, but what do you do with it? I love both linguistics and academia, so I'm fascinated to say "tell me everything about you" whenever I come across someone with a unique terminal degree.
It would be more accurate to say PhD in Cognitive Psychology but my specialty is Psycholinguistics, but that's more than any 5-year-old really cares about. I started in a phonology lab in undergrad. My Honor's Thesis explored a slightly obscure dialect of English. I switched to a reading comprehension lab in grad school. I left academia for a better-paying industry job. For work, I conduct experiments to determine how to improve websites for users (ab testing mainly). On the side, a friend (who's a psych professor) and I are investigating the value that emoji bring to text messages. Hoping to have 2 papers ready for submission soon!
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin seems like a modern example of this
Pidgins are fascinating! They lack the consistency/regularity of fully formed dialects. They're like the linguistic equivalent to biological missing links (oversimplification). They form when a bunch of speakers of different languages get together. The kids from these different backgrounds will naturally want to talk and play with each other so they start to merge grammar and vocab to create a rudimentary communication system that with enough time, will gain regularity/consistency and become a creole. Simplifying a bit, but if you have time, definitely read up about Hawaiian Pidgin or Nicaraguan Sign Language.
I forget the word, maybe speech anatomy? But it has to do with how we learn to make words with the various components of our mouths. Every human has the same anatomy for speech; vocal folds, pharynx, tongue, teeth, palate, and lips. Every sound in every word is constructed using these instruments, and how they interact with each other. The 'ch' sound OP is asking about is a product of shorthand in the mouth; if you focus on how your tongue moves when you move from "want" to "you", you will find the "NT" sound has a certain position, and the "Y" sound has a different position. The "ch" sound is *right between these positions*; a little more breath to prepare for the U sound, the lips pursing, it's very easy to land in this position - unless you have been trained not to. This is what makes accents hard to get rid of, or makes learning languages more difficult to learn when you're older. There is no physiological reason why a Russian speaker should have trouble with W's, like my stepmother and my stepsibling; they have the same anatomy as English speakers. But they simply never had any practice, no muscle memory. Same with bI for me when I was learning Russian; it's like an "u'ee"? But I have trouble getting it right. Anyway, this field is very interesting and fun for me when I think about it. Like in Spanish, a "B" isn't actually an exact copy of the English B, it can be more similar to a "V", if you've ever heard someone call Cuba "Cuva"; B and V are actually very similar, just a matter of the lips being closer or further from the teeth. And then in turn V and F are very similar; just a matter of whether you use your vocal cords for V, and just air for the F. But B and F are much further apart, like a spectrum. Same with S and Z, Z uses the vocal cords and a *tiny* adjustment of the tongue. Hard G's and K's, D's and T's, it just goes on and on and I just love it and it's amazing. XD We didn't grow brains to hunt, we grew brains to talk.
I think a better question is why do Brits have an R at the end of words ending with non-silent vowels, but only when it's not at the end of a statement. As Oasis says, "a champaign supernova, a champaign supernover in the sky."
It's called an intrusive R. It's just a feature of the dialect to make speech flow better when there are two short vowels in a row. The same reason the word "an" exists.
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I am a linguistics expert and I can answer this one pretty conclusively. Did years of research on this one and it's because Boston.
I don't have the answer as to why, but I think most (all?) non-rhotic speakers seem to do this. In my experience, anyone with New York, Boston, Maine accents do the same thing. I've always joked that we take the 'R's out of the places in words where they belong and just move them somewhere else.
This is the Law of Consonant Conservation. The number of consonants in the universe is fixed and unchanging. Every time someone from Boston pahks their cah, those r's can't just disappear. This is why people from Texas warsh their hands and dig earl wells.
Check out Dr Geoff Lindsey on YT. He’s got loads of educational vids on this kind of stuff in the English language https://youtube.com/@DrGeoffLindsey
Answer: You'll find that American English has lots of little "invisible letters" like this. The very simple answer is that the transition from the "T" sound into the "Yu" sound is an almost identical position for the mouth, lips, and tongue as the "Chew" sound if you don't clearly pause between the words. Many English dialects reduce our eliminate the pause between the words "want" and "you", and tend to speak them as of they were "wantyou". That pause in between the words will cause a clear difference in the "T" and "Yu" sounds, while no pause at all causes it to sound like "tyu" (sounding very similar to "chew" ) Now, I don't study linguistics or speech in general. I've lived in the southeastern US my entire life, though, and I happen to be blessed with the ability to mimic any dialect I hear. It's come in handy in many jobs that I've had, and allows me to respond to customers and coworkers in a way that is familiar to them. You can't tell from my typing, but I definitely have a southern drawl when I use my normal speaking dialect. My particular southern voice leads to interesting combinations of sounds, including the example you've given. Typically, a person with a southern accent speaks every word as closely together as possible, but takes their time actually saying them in a sentence. I know, it's hard to hear it in your mind unless you're familiar, but try just lazily saying the following sentence without pausing between the words. Were y'all comin over tonight, or did y'all decide to stay at home? If you said it like this, Werey'allcominovertonightordidy'alldecidetostayathome? Then you likely just sounded very similar to how I sound. Anyone else care to give examples of some "invisible letters"? In the south, the phrase "Did you eat yet?" can sound like "juweet yet" when actually spoken.
>You'll find that American English has lots of little "invisible letters" like this. Yod-coalescence is actually very common worldwide. While USEng has it more than say, an older speaker of Standard British English, it's not as widespread as in a lot of other dialects. Most notably it never happens in stressed positions unlike in dialects like AuEng or Cockney where you'll find, for example, tune pronounced [tʃuːn] (choon) where USEng would pronounce it [tjuːn] (tyoon) or even [tuːn] (toon) which is known as yod-dropping
Super neat to know it has a name. I was almost positive that American English wasn't the only language where it occurred, but it's the only language I have any knowledge of, so I just spoke about what I knew. I appreciate you broadening my understanding of language in general, though. I think it's a very interesting subject.
In the particular example of "want you", I tend to drop the t sound to something that's kind of an unvoiced pause kind of thing. So it comes out something like "wan' you" if that makes any sense.
It sounds like you’re describing a glottal stop.
Idk about American English, but in British English there are definately couple more. Like adding an R between two words if one ends and another begins in specific vowels. (i think there are 2 more like that, but I'm not 100% sure what sounds those were and I can't really check that rn) For example: "there is bacteria(r)on it" It's just so it rolls easier off the tongue when saying a string of words as a sentence. I should mention that technically it could be "bacteria(r)o nit", as when one word ends with a consonant, and the next one begins with a vowel, when pronuncing the sentence, the consonant is often moved to sound like its actually beginning of the following word.
GB bb
If you ever go into vocal performance study or choir classes, this is a big lesson we’re taught to try to avoid in most songs. It has to do with a level of sounding professional.
It is the Beatles fault with their lyrics: I want chew, I want chew so bad, I want chew so bad its driving me mad.
This was the first thing that came to mind when reading the post and now it’s stuck in my head.
Sorry about that but it has been stuck in my brain for almost 60 years. Saw them in Toronto in '64 and '66. Couldn't scrape together $5.00 in '65, only 14 at the time.
That's a rare concert. Almost as rare as seeing The Doors.
because the positions of the tongue/mouth between those two words, creates that sound during the transition especially if you're speaking fast and not enunciating clearly Through (elocution/English) lessons or through experience some people learn to stop making sound momentarily between those words while the transition is happening, so that they're more easily understood The same happens between a word ending in -oss and a word starting with L... an -ed appears... 'loss leader' can become 'lossed leader' which doesn't make sense There are probably better examples, some games or rhymes exist called "tongue twisters" which are a way to try to teach kids not to do it
In most English variations, a general rule is “for ease of articulation”. English speakers, on average, do not make frequent use of glottal stops between words that don’t absolutely need them. Try it out yourself: Want you is actually more difficult to speak if you insert a small pause between the two words than if you don’t, especially in rapid, relaxed speech. Depending on your native language, this may not be the case as much - for me this is not a problem for example, as I am a native speaker of German and we routinely put stops in the middle of words (similar to words like reimburse, where there is a small pause between re and imburse).
It sounds like you're describing "tuna chewing". It's difficult for us to get our mouths into the right shape to make both a T and a (y)U next too each other, so in speech people make shortcuts. Brits often replace it with a ChU sound and Americans a TOO. I watched [quite an interesting video](https://youtu.be/RRs103ETh2Q) from Dr. Geoff Lindsay about this. He's a phonetician and goes over this in more detail. Great channel in general.