Common Mistakes #1: I watch-id TV

Posted bynewcityenglishPosted inEnglish

Pronouncing English verbs in the past is tricky. I mean, when you see a word that ends in “-ed,” it should be simple. For regular verbs, just add an “id” sound at the end, and you’ve got the past tense, right?

Unfortunately, wrong. The majority of regular “-ed” verbs are not pronounced with an extra syllable “-id” ending. Instead, they are pronounced with either a ‘-d’ or ‘-t’ sound without an extra syllable. 

Take this short story: “I watched a video yesterday. The teacher talked, I listened. I learned so much that I followed him on Facebook and LinkedIn.”

Here is how you’d pronounce all those “-ed” ending words: watchd, talkt, listend, learnd, followd, Linktin. No extra syllable “id” on any of those words.

But hold on, you’re thinking. Some words are pronounced with an extra syllable ‘-id’. So how do I know whether to say -id, -d, or -t?  

Well, it all depends on the sound before the -ed. The most important rule to remember is this:

If the verb has a ‘d’ or a ‘t’ sound before ‘-ed,’ then pronounce ‘-id’ with an extra syllable. If it doesn’t, don’t pronounce an extra syllable.

It’s the sound before the ‘-ed,’ not the letter: ‘decided’ is pronounced ‘decide-id’ even though ‘decide’ ends in ‘e.’ The ‘e’ is silent, so the last sound is ‘d’. = ‘decide-id.’ Here are some words that are pronounced with an extra syllable “id:”

wanted (want-id)

ended (end-id)

suggested (suggest-id)

started (start-id)

For all other words that don’t end in the -d or -t sound, the important thing to remember is NOT to add another syllable ‘-id.’ 

But there is a small difference here too. So, if you really want to know, here’s how you you know whether to end the word with ‘-d’ or ‘-t’:

  • If the word before ‘ed’ ends in the sounds ‘p’, ‘f’, ‘s’, ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘k’, then ‘ed’ is pronounced ‘t’: 

‘p’ stopped (stopt)

‘f’ laughed (laught)

‘ch’ watched (watcht)

‘sh’ finished (finisht)

‘s’ kissed (kisst)

‘k’ walked (walkt)

  • For all other words, ‘ed’ is pronounced ‘d’:

allowed (allowd)

cried (cryd)

tagged (tagd)

cleaned (cleand)

played (playd)

enjoyed (enjoyd)

I hope you enjoyed this post, and learned something new! It can take a while to get into the habit of pronouncing these correctly, so be patient with yourself. Language improvement is all about persistence.