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Pronunciation of can’t | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5648 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 9 of 68 07 February 2012 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hehe, that's because Americans pronounce can't "wrongly"...
Watch British films instead, and the difference will be quite obvious... ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Superking Diglot Groupie United States polyglutwastaken.blo Joined 6453 days ago 87 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 10 of 68 07 February 2012 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of it will be based on context... the glottal stop at the end of US English "can't" can make it hard to distinguish from "can." However, another poster made a good point that word stress will often be your clue. For example:
"I can swim very well." -- in this sentence, the word "can" doesn't carry any stress in the sentence, and there's very little pause between "can" and swim." "I can't swim very well." -- in this one, "can't" and "swim" are going to be a lot closer in stress level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4498 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 11 of 68 07 February 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some people in Boston at least also have the linguistically conservative, Britsh-sounding "can't," though I don't seem to hear it as often these days. Not sure if that helps, though, because even my native-English, linguistically-inclined parents claim that Boston English is unintelligible to them. I never had that kind of difficulty myself, but I hear that a lot from other Americans.
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| Northernlights Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4485 days ago 73 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 12 of 68 07 February 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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This thread has got me trying out my attempt at "American" to spot the difference, and I've only just realised that the vowel sound doesn't change in American lol!
For my ears, native of south-eastern British English, it's like this: Stressed vowels: Can rhymes with 'khan', pan, fan, man, plan Can't rhymes with 'khahrnt' plant, slant Unstressed vowels: Can sounds like 'khn' or "khun" Can't sounds like "kahrn" Basically there's a big difference, but then when I tried out 'American', 'can' had the same vowel as 'can't'. It must be difficult for foreign learners so I agree with Cordelia that the British English version is clearer :-) Limited to this example though, people generally tell me they find American easier to understand. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5225 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 13 of 68 07 February 2012 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Seems like it would make more sense to pronounce "can" and "can't" with the same vowel, since they're built from the same word... Edited by nway on 07 February 2012 at 7:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4498 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 14 of 68 07 February 2012 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Right. Can't = "can not." Funny how the pronounciation of "can" gets compeltely changed because of saying the word "not" after it. I just now notice that the British vowel sound with "can't" is actually much more similar to the vowel sound of "not." Coincidence? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5225 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 15 of 68 07 February 2012 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Oh snap, you're right. That's an ingenious discovery. o.O Brits and their crazy ways of speaking English. :P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4844 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 16 of 68 07 February 2012 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a speaker of American English, I don't use a glottal stop for "can't". I use a real, articulated T, as do most others I know. Maybe some regions do use a glottal stop, and I won't say it doesn't exist in really fast speech. I wouldn't call it indicative of the whole country, though.
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