I can very much feel the difference in my mouth (and I say “truck”), though I’m not sure how it would sound to others’ ears. A plain “t” positions the tongue differently (and I think further forward overall?) than a “ch” sound does.
Linguistically I think what’s going on was explained in a book I read once: people tend to cheat in their pronunciation. For example “NPR”, the abbreviation for National Public Radio. If you listen to how people actually say it, it will probably sound more like “MPR”. This is because the “P” sound requires the lips to be brought together (like “m”), as opposed to being open (like “n”). The tongue tends to constantly “cheat” toward the position for the next sound that’s coming up, so what you actually get is a sound that’s trying to be “n” while simultaneously closing the lips – it sounds more like “m”.
Same thing here. The mouth and tongue position for R is a lot closer to that of CH than that of T. So I think for a lot of people the tip of the tongue flattens out, the body of it comes up, and the whole thing slides back a little bit while trying to pronounce the T (knowing the R is next), resulting in a sound closer to CH.
How close probably depends on how much you “cheat”.
I don’t hear the first linked clip as “ch”, but it does have a bit of a breathy sound to it (tongue tip isn’t quite making contact for the “t”). The second one has a cleaner T sound. I agree with Ascenray that speakers of Indian English have have particularly clear T sounds – maybe because the Indian T sound is pronounced with the tongue tip curled so far back that you just can’t “cheat” in the same way.
I think they both sound like a “ch”, and that’s how it should be. If I try to use a regular T sound it either sounds like “terruck” or like I have a speech impediment.
For the love of God, can someone who hears the difference record the two sounds somewhere online so we can hear them?
If the two sounds (‘truck’ and ‘chruck’) are recorded somewhere, I can create a poll here on the SDMB that says
[ol]
[li]Sound A is ‘truck’ Sound B is ‘chruck’[/li][li]Sound A is ‘chruck’ Sound B is ‘truck’[/li][li]Both sounds are ‘truck’[/li][li]Both sounds are ‘chruck’[/li][/ol]
And then we will be able to see how many of you get it right.
I CAN say “truck.” If I hold my lips fairly rigid and pulled back a little as if I were saying “ee.” Then I can tap my tongue against the roof of my mouth and the r doesn’t get all squishy (yes, these ARE technical terms!) But if I just say it naturally, I purse my lips, my tongue touches more fully against my palate, and it is “chruck.”
I can try to find a microphone and make some recordings.
Yes, but I supposed this poll needs to be limited to NAE–or some region–to really be meaningful.
“Cheat”? (I think the word is “coarticulation.”) To say “cheat” implies that they’re doing something wrong. Speech is a natural phenomenon, and the way people speak naturally–unaffected–isn’t “cheating,” any more than a tree is “cheating” if its boughs bend with gravity. The subtext behind using that term is that spelling (an artificial and pretty arbitrary representation of language) should determine or drive how we speak.
I don’t think that’s apparent. Even if we are going to limit the discussion to “native-born English speakers,” I think Indian English is validly included.
In any case, the point is that it is possible for a listener, even a native-American-English-speaking person like me, to distinguish the two sounds without being biased by our own personal pronunciation. Indeed, linguists routinely make such distinctions.
I think that I pronounce “truck” differently from “chruck”.
I’m wondering about other words that start with “tr”, like train, track, trek, treat, trick, trite, trot, trope, troop and trunk. I’m pretty sure that I pronounce all these words with a “tr” sound. Does anyone here pronounce them with a “chr”?
I’m a bit surprised that it’s all of them. I find it difficult to say “chreat” and “chrite”. “Chrot” and “chrunk” are a bit easier.
Is the “chr” pronunciation of “tr” more common for someone who isn’t fluent in a language that uses the alveolar trill?
For those who hear and say “chruck”, do you speak a language besides English, and, if yes, does that language use a “rolled R”?
I hear Truck and I was sure I said Truck, until I said it slowly, and there is a slight “ch”. It’s the same with other “tr” words. It’s impossible to say them slowly and place your tongue in the correct position to form the “t”.
It’s not that it’s uninteresting; I think it just got buried under other discussion. What makes it especially interesting is that the mouth doesn’t do anything like what it usually does for a P sound when saying “tray”. I think, though, that this might be a consequence of the cutting process, rather than of the sounds themselves: If you’re going straight from silence into an arbitrary point on some waveform, you’re going to introduce a lot of high-frequency harmonics to accommodate the abrupt change. My guess is that if you attached some other sound to the beginning of your “pray” clip, the P wouldn’t sound nearly as prominent, or possibly would disappear entirely.
Sounds like you’re saying, “chruck, truck” over and over again.
Could you spoiler box what you said at some point? I’m really curious. Thanks for taking the time to record and upload. I’m ashamed at how many times I’ve checked this thread from work, it’s very interesting.
I do hear a slight difference. If I’m not mistaken, you are saying
chruck - truck - chruck - truck -chruck - truck
Is this correct?
One question I have is, during normal speech, do you think you pronounce them the same as above, or are they closer in pronunciation inside regular sentences?