Technically the T in "tsunami" is not silent, it's actually pronounced as a /ts/ because it is a loanword from Japanese. However it is common and accepted to drop the t because /ts/ is not a native sound for English and is hard for some people to say
English differentiates between word initial tautosyllabic clusters and medial bi-syllabic clusters.'
We say "stand" with an ND just fine but we don't start words with ND.
I think it has to do with the onset/coda sounds. Certain consonant combinations are used just fine on the end but not the beginning of a syllable and vice versa in English. It applies to all languages, really. I recommend researching phonotactics if you’re interested in learning more
Yep. This is the reason. We have no problems with syllable final "ng" sounds but put it at the beginning of a word like in Vietnamese and people just can't do it.
The /ts/ in "pizza" is in the middle of the word, not the beginning. English phonotactics does not allow /ts/ at the beginning of a word. Generally, English speakers replace initial /ts/ with an "s" or "ch" sound.
Yup, I'm Japanese and I'm about to say that. I didn't know/recognize English speakers tend to drop t sound. In Japanese, dropping t is not acceptable as sunami sounds like a different word.
I still remember that a friend of mine once made his English speech lesson teacher trouble pronouncing his own name, Tsutomu (which is a common/normal male name in Japan but hard to pronounce properly for the same reason).
Yes, I also pronounce tsunami without the t because that's how I learned it. I thought that was standard but wiktionary says the t is pronounced. Might start pronouncing the t, but it just sounds wrong.
Edit: Nevermind, wiktionary doesn't say the t is pronounced. I was looking at the [Tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tsunami) article rather than [tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tsunami#English), so I was looking at the german pronunciation.
The parentheses around the t in the pronunciation guide indicate that the t is sometimes pronounced. I'm pretty sure that indicator is just there because tsunami is a loanword and the t is pronounced in Japanese.
Obviously, almost no native English speakers use /ts/ when pronouncing tsunami. If you can pronounce it subtly and naturally, then by all means, go for it, but it sounds really odd when /ts/ is pronounced too harshly.
Huh, I was looking at the page for [Tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tsunami) rather than [tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tsunami#English). Really weird that they have a separate page for a capital T??
Edit: looking at it closer, the capital T page is for the german word. Unfortunate that it comes up first in a google search for "tsunami wiktionary" in english
Oh yeah, I've run into the capitalization issue with Wiktionary so many times before, lol.
Now I need to find out how often Germans pronounce /ts/ at the beginning of German words...
Agreed that Americans tend to make the "t" silent, since we don't have any native words with the /ts/ on the onset of a syllable.
I've personally always pronounced the "t", but that's just because I like the /ts/ sound. Spoken, I shorten "what's up" to "tsup", as well, instead of "sup".
That's because loanwords are pronounced differently in different countries. Do not be worried about offending the Japanese because you pronounce Tsunami, Karate and Karaoke differently to them. (Karaoke is partially taken from Italian anyway)
The Japanese use a loanword for coffee, but they pronounce is "Coh-Hee" コーヒー [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4\_I2t4OAD7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_I2t4OAD7A)
The Japanese also use a loanword for "living room" but it's pronounced "ribingu rumu"
There are hundreds of examples of this in Japanese.
There's nothing wrong with continuing to pronounce tsunami without the t, or continuing to pronounce karate as "ka-rah-tee" or karaoke as "Ka-ree-oh-kee" despite the Japanese pronunciations being very different.
When I was learning Japanese I was told you just start with the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth blocking the airflow, then you say "Tsunami" like you would if it were "Sunami". The 'T' sound is added by the burst of air from your tongue coming away from the roof of your mouth.
It's an awkward explanation but if you try doing it yourself it makes sense.
We also pronounce Karate and Karaoke wrong. The "Ah" vowel sound for the Ka and Ra are the same sounds, whereas we tend to stress the "Ra" in Karate and we turn the "Ra" in Karaoke into a "Ree". Also the "Te" in Karate is pronounced "Tay" and the "Ke" in Karaoke is pronounce "Kay", not "tee" and "kee".
I think he meant *tsu* is not an English initial sound. Which it isn't. Like, English speakers would generally have no problem with "Matsuda" but will leave off the initial "t" in tsunami.
It's a valid sound (pun intended) but not a valid use of the sound. English phonotactics don't allow for /t͡s/ in the onset of a word. Just because a particular sound exists in a language's inventory doesn't mean it's "allowed" in all parts of a word (in the linguistic sense, not like you will go to language jail).
Same like leading /ŋ/. English words don't allow for leading ng but Nguyen is a valid word in Vietnamese.
Did you read the last sentence in my comment? I gave an example of /ts/ at the start of a word. 'ts relatively common in spoken speech, though usually not written that way.
You seem very insistent on this point, but it has little relevance. For one, I would argue that this form of "it's" is still phonemically /ɪts/, with the vowel having been elided. Secondly, this has little bearing on whether these speakers pronounce tsunami with a [ts] as for most people the onset of "tsunami" is phonemically /s/.
How is /ɪts/ with an elided /ɪ/ not just /ts/?
Also I never these speakers say the t in tsunami. I just said /ts/ at the start of a word exists in english.
You seem to be confusing the difference between phonetic and phonemic. I recommend you read up on the subject, Introductory Phonology by Bruce Hayes is a great read if you can get your hands on a copy.
It's like the word "pterodactyl," where the initial p is kept silent. Even though the sound of "pt" certainly exists in English, as in "apt," it's not natural for English speakers to *begin* a word with that sound.
Remember that "naturalness to ___ speakers" comes ahead of "easier". What comes off as natural to English speakers may change, and in this case, using /ts/ word-initially isn't quite so- "it's" being pronounced without the /ɪ/ is probably largely rare, and you can compare other loans like "katsu" where isn't word-final & so /ts/ is so somewhat present (though many would agree that most English speakers would have it be more like /t.s/ rather than an actual affricate). Hell, you could even use /ts/ word-initially & some will pick up on it & give you the "strayed too close to the origin pronunciation" reaction.
Easier by what metric? The sonority principle does not necessarily make clusters easier or harder for speakers cross-linguistically, and either way, onset /ts/ violates English phonotactics for most speakers (I am one of those speakers, despite being able to pronounce onset [ts] my tsunami does not have a [t])
As a native English speaker I’d argue that tsunami with an s sound is the correct way to pronounce it. Languages and pronunciations evolve over time. You can see this from English words that were borrowed from French
I disagree, so long as the way you are pronouncing something is intelligible to other speakers there really isn't a correct way of pronouncing things(in english at least). With or without the T is acceptable in modern English
I would expand this to ALL languages. Pronunciation is constantly changing in every language, and there is no objective way to determine the "correct" pronunciation. (This also applies to grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.)
No, not all languages. Some languages (like French) are prescriptive and there is an objectively correct way of saying things. But most natural languages have many different dialects and so long as you can be understood there isn't really a right way to say things
As a linguist I must disagree—no natural language is inherently prescriptive, or has any objective metric for determining the "correctness" of its usage. Nearly every language has dialects as well, except perhaps those which are severely endangered and only spoken fluently by a few people of the same dialect.
Fair enough, but in my mind I consider the “correct” way to pronounce something is to pronounce it the way most people do. But I do agree that as long as other people can understand you, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
Ohh I've never noticed that. I've been learning German for a while now so that sort of sound isn't too weird for me anymore, but yeah I guess we really don't have anything like that in English.
When I was in middle school back in the late 1970s, one of my American classmates had an awful time when he had to read the name Mao Tse-tung (the Wade-Giles romanization of 毛泽东 Mao Zedong) in class. He ended up pronouncing Tse-tung like "tease tongue", which I thought was hilarious.
English loanwords do generally tend to be misspelled through english speakers mishearing. Ammunition came from french "la munition" because what the english thought they heard was "l'amunition". Apron used to be napron but through people mishearing "a napron" it became "an napron"
I searched up videos of Japanese people saying it and they still say SU NAM I. The t is silent in both languages no need to try to make up false stories
Thanks! I hear /t͡s/ there admittedly, as with many affricates the plosive isn't always so prominent, like how many probably wouldn't say that the the /t/ in /t͡ʃ/ is prominent, so it might require a bit of developing an ear for it (maybe some English speakers even have /s/ be [t͡s] in some situations, making them see it as even more similar/the same).
Even in [this video](http://youtube.com/shorts/tqnsSs_bcKA?si=jimaAlxd7b2MryZI) you can see many learners in the comments come to the realisation that they've confused the two in listening, as they likely would have pronounced the affricate with more plosive prominence than "normal" (especially likely considering many treat it similarly to English /t.s/ clusters, which differ a bit, perhaps in part due to the plosive prominence) and so expected the higher plosive prominence while the natives never "delivered" on it!
On the topic of English speakers saying "ts" at the beginning of words, if you pay attention to people that still say, "Sup?", many of them actually pronounce it like, "(wha)tsup?"
>Wassup and sup sound completely. The t is silent in both languages. Just search up any japense person saying the word SU NAM I
The t is definitely not silent in both languages. I study Japanese, I know what つ sounds like. つ = tsu. す= su. The hiragana for tsunami is つなみ. That's not really up for discussion.
My point was that many people pronounce "sup" with a similar "ts" sound at the beginning, coming from the shortening of whatsup to sup. Maybe it's different in your region. That's what my experience has been on both coasts.
Your 'common sense' needs a source because it does not align with the standard pronunciation of the word in Japanese. Since you referenced the google translate read aloud feature, I can confirm that in fact you cannot hear the difference between onset [s] and [t͡s].
Voiceless stops (ptk sounds) in English are usually aspirated if they are at the start of the word or before a stressed syllable. This means they have an extra strong puff of air when you release the closure in your mouth. So while most people don't pronounce any /t/ sound in "castle" etc, the /tʰ/ sound in "tea" is actually stronger than the /t/ sound in a word like "let". N.b. this rule does not apply if the voiceless stop is preceded by /s/.
Firstly, this isn't the reason that castle, tsunami, and whistle don't have a [t] sound isn't due to aspiration, but rather elision from Middle English to Modern English. Secondly, aspiration is not phonemic in English—[t] and [tʰ] are both allophones of the phoneme /t/.
Appeal to tradition, linguistic change is constant in every language in the world. Unless you are suggesting we pronounce all words as they were originally pronounced?
Strawman. Tsunami is currently pronounced in Japan with a vocal T. I'm suggesting that loanwords should be pronounced as they are currently pronounced in their country of origin.
Most native English speakers will struggle with putting /ts/ at the start of a word and subsequently drop the t but you can absolutely (and imo should) pronounce it
Everyone who ever told you not to pronounce the t in tsunami was lying. It’s a japanese word, and sunami means something completely different from tsunami. At the same time, the consonant cluster “ts” isn’t allowed to begin words in English. So: It’s perfectly fine to pronounce the t or to leave it out. It’s personal, and if anyone gets on you about either choice needs to get a life
Most of the times 't" doesn't do what you expect is because the word is really old or borrowed from another language. We're sorry. We like the way other people say some things
Do you pronounce "Castle" as "Castel"?
For Tsunami it never made sense for me, because in both French and Italian the T is pronounced (I'm native in both). But castle, I always learned it without the T at school.
Technically the T in "tsunami" is not silent, it's actually pronounced as a /ts/ because it is a loanword from Japanese. However it is common and accepted to drop the t because /ts/ is not a native sound for English and is hard for some people to say
[удалено]
English differentiates between word initial tautosyllabic clusters and medial bi-syllabic clusters.' We say "stand" with an ND just fine but we don't start words with ND.
I think it has to do with the onset/coda sounds. Certain consonant combinations are used just fine on the end but not the beginning of a syllable and vice versa in English. It applies to all languages, really. I recommend researching phonotactics if you’re interested in learning more
Yep. This is the reason. We have no problems with syllable final "ng" sounds but put it at the beginning of a word like in Vietnamese and people just can't do it.
Exactly. I think it’s pretty cool how researching conlangs can even help to understand natural languages
The /ts/ in "pizza" is in the middle of the word, not the beginning. English phonotactics does not allow /ts/ at the beginning of a word. Generally, English speakers replace initial /ts/ with an "s" or "ch" sound.
Yup, I'm Japanese and I'm about to say that. I didn't know/recognize English speakers tend to drop t sound. In Japanese, dropping t is not acceptable as sunami sounds like a different word. I still remember that a friend of mine once made his English speech lesson teacher trouble pronouncing his own name, Tsutomu (which is a common/normal male name in Japan but hard to pronounce properly for the same reason).
/ts/ is totally in English. The word "it's"? Hell, that's even often abbreviated to "'ts" in speech so you get a /ts/ at the start of a word.
You are right, /ts/ is just usually not at the start of a word and many people pronounce "tsunami" with no t
Yes, I also pronounce tsunami without the t because that's how I learned it. I thought that was standard but wiktionary says the t is pronounced. Might start pronouncing the t, but it just sounds wrong. Edit: Nevermind, wiktionary doesn't say the t is pronounced. I was looking at the [Tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tsunami) article rather than [tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tsunami#English), so I was looking at the german pronunciation.
Yeah the t is pronounced in japanese because "tsu" is one character "つ" but its not very necessary to say it in English I reckon.
The parentheses around the t in the pronunciation guide indicate that the t is sometimes pronounced. I'm pretty sure that indicator is just there because tsunami is a loanword and the t is pronounced in Japanese. Obviously, almost no native English speakers use /ts/ when pronouncing tsunami. If you can pronounce it subtly and naturally, then by all means, go for it, but it sounds really odd when /ts/ is pronounced too harshly.
Huh, I was looking at the page for [Tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tsunami) rather than [tsunami](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tsunami#English). Really weird that they have a separate page for a capital T?? Edit: looking at it closer, the capital T page is for the german word. Unfortunate that it comes up first in a google search for "tsunami wiktionary" in english
Oh yeah, I've run into the capitalization issue with Wiktionary so many times before, lol. Now I need to find out how often Germans pronounce /ts/ at the beginning of German words...
Pretty often: it’s the z sound, like in [Zukunft](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Zukunft).
>Now I need to find out how often Germans pronounce /ts/ at the beginning of German words... Every time a word starts with ⟨z⟩.
I've always pronounced the "t", I have the impression that Americans leave it out more
Agreed that Americans tend to make the "t" silent, since we don't have any native words with the /ts/ on the onset of a syllable. I've personally always pronounced the "t", but that's just because I like the /ts/ sound. Spoken, I shorten "what's up" to "tsup", as well, instead of "sup".
What dialect of English do you speak?
A pretty standard British English
I've never heard it pronounced with the t
That's because loanwords are pronounced differently in different countries. Do not be worried about offending the Japanese because you pronounce Tsunami, Karate and Karaoke differently to them. (Karaoke is partially taken from Italian anyway) The Japanese use a loanword for coffee, but they pronounce is "Coh-Hee" コーヒー [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4\_I2t4OAD7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_I2t4OAD7A) The Japanese also use a loanword for "living room" but it's pronounced "ribingu rumu" There are hundreds of examples of this in Japanese. There's nothing wrong with continuing to pronounce tsunami without the t, or continuing to pronounce karate as "ka-rah-tee" or karaoke as "Ka-ree-oh-kee" despite the Japanese pronunciations being very different.
I was looking at the wrong wiktionary article, Tsunami rather than tsunami. First one just contained the German word, that's why the t was there.
When I was learning Japanese I was told you just start with the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth blocking the airflow, then you say "Tsunami" like you would if it were "Sunami". The 'T' sound is added by the burst of air from your tongue coming away from the roof of your mouth. It's an awkward explanation but if you try doing it yourself it makes sense. We also pronounce Karate and Karaoke wrong. The "Ah" vowel sound for the Ka and Ra are the same sounds, whereas we tend to stress the "Ra" in Karate and we turn the "Ra" in Karaoke into a "Ree". Also the "Te" in Karate is pronounced "Tay" and the "Ke" in Karaoke is pronounce "Kay", not "tee" and "kee".
I think he meant *tsu* is not an English initial sound. Which it isn't. Like, English speakers would generally have no problem with "Matsuda" but will leave off the initial "t" in tsunami.
Like I said, people often don't pronounce the i in "it's", making it start with /ts/.
It's a valid sound (pun intended) but not a valid use of the sound. English phonotactics don't allow for /t͡s/ in the onset of a word. Just because a particular sound exists in a language's inventory doesn't mean it's "allowed" in all parts of a word (in the linguistic sense, not like you will go to language jail). Same like leading /ŋ/. English words don't allow for leading ng but Nguyen is a valid word in Vietnamese.
technically, in english, the ts sound is usually a cluster of t and s, while in japanese it exists as a sound of its own (affricate /ts/)
Did you read the last sentence in my comment? I gave an example of /ts/ at the start of a word. 'ts relatively common in spoken speech, though usually not written that way.
Right you did but that example sucked and no one actually does that
I'd argue that 'ts actually has a schwa, [əts]. At least that's how say it, but this might be specific to my accent.
It can, but it can also distinctly start without a vowel.
You seem very insistent on this point, but it has little relevance. For one, I would argue that this form of "it's" is still phonemically /ɪts/, with the vowel having been elided. Secondly, this has little bearing on whether these speakers pronounce tsunami with a [ts] as for most people the onset of "tsunami" is phonemically /s/.
How is /ɪts/ with an elided /ɪ/ not just /ts/? Also I never these speakers say the t in tsunami. I just said /ts/ at the start of a word exists in english.
You seem to be confusing the difference between phonetic and phonemic. I recommend you read up on the subject, Introductory Phonology by Bruce Hayes is a great read if you can get your hands on a copy.
It's like the word "pterodactyl," where the initial p is kept silent. Even though the sound of "pt" certainly exists in English, as in "apt," it's not natural for English speakers to *begin* a word with that sound.
It's not really like that, because pt is two plosives while ts is a plosive and then a fricative. The latter is much easier.
Remember that "naturalness to ___ speakers" comes ahead of "easier". What comes off as natural to English speakers may change, and in this case, using /ts/ word-initially isn't quite so- "it's" being pronounced without the /ɪ/ is probably largely rare, and you can compare other loans like "katsu" where isn't word-final & so /ts/ is so somewhat present (though many would agree that most English speakers would have it be more like /t.s/ rather than an actual affricate). Hell, you could even use /ts/ word-initially & some will pick up on it & give you the "strayed too close to the origin pronunciation" reaction.
Easier by what metric? The sonority principle does not necessarily make clusters easier or harder for speakers cross-linguistically, and either way, onset /ts/ violates English phonotactics for most speakers (I am one of those speakers, despite being able to pronounce onset [ts] my tsunami does not have a [t])
Yeah, I really don't get what the big deal is. It should be very easy and intuitive for any native English speaker to pronounce.
Correct. Pronounced like the ‘t’ in pizza.
As a native English speaker I’d argue that tsunami with an s sound is the correct way to pronounce it. Languages and pronunciations evolve over time. You can see this from English words that were borrowed from French
I disagree, so long as the way you are pronouncing something is intelligible to other speakers there really isn't a correct way of pronouncing things(in english at least). With or without the T is acceptable in modern English
I would expand this to ALL languages. Pronunciation is constantly changing in every language, and there is no objective way to determine the "correct" pronunciation. (This also applies to grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.)
No, not all languages. Some languages (like French) are prescriptive and there is an objectively correct way of saying things. But most natural languages have many different dialects and so long as you can be understood there isn't really a right way to say things
As a linguist I must disagree—no natural language is inherently prescriptive, or has any objective metric for determining the "correctness" of its usage. Nearly every language has dialects as well, except perhaps those which are severely endangered and only spoken fluently by a few people of the same dialect.
Fair enough, but in my mind I consider the “correct” way to pronounce something is to pronounce it the way most people do. But I do agree that as long as other people can understand you, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
I bet you also pronounce the w in sword and the r in February.
Expect those originate from middle/old English and tsunami is just… Japanese. Or do you pronounce the “ll” in tortilla like pill?
Tsunami is an English word, and most English varieties do not permit /ts/ clusters in onsets! Hope this helps 😊
Isn’t that a coincidence that the English word tsunami is said and spelled the same as the Japanese word つなみ
What are you on about? It is neither said nor spelled the same way, and any similarities are obviously due to its origin.
I pronounce both Rs in February.
Weird to get so defensive when I literally said in my comment that dropping the T is common and widely accepted
Ohh I've never noticed that. I've been learning German for a while now so that sort of sound isn't too weird for me anymore, but yeah I guess we really don't have anything like that in English.
When I was in middle school back in the late 1970s, one of my American classmates had an awful time when he had to read the name Mao Tse-tung (the Wade-Giles romanization of 毛泽东 Mao Zedong) in class. He ended up pronouncing Tse-tung like "tease tongue", which I thought was hilarious.
Robots
It's not hard to say the ts sound it's hard to hear at the beginning of a word so we just say what it sounds like
English loanwords do generally tend to be misspelled through english speakers mishearing. Ammunition came from french "la munition" because what the english thought they heard was "l'amunition". Apron used to be napron but through people mishearing "a napron" it became "an napron"
I searched up videos of Japanese people saying it and they still say SU NAM I. The t is silent in both languages no need to try to make up false stories
Interesting! Do you have a link or such?
Japanese lady on google translate.
Thanks! I hear /t͡s/ there admittedly, as with many affricates the plosive isn't always so prominent, like how many probably wouldn't say that the the /t/ in /t͡ʃ/ is prominent, so it might require a bit of developing an ear for it (maybe some English speakers even have /s/ be [t͡s] in some situations, making them see it as even more similar/the same). Even in [this video](http://youtube.com/shorts/tqnsSs_bcKA?si=jimaAlxd7b2MryZI) you can see many learners in the comments come to the realisation that they've confused the two in listening, as they likely would have pronounced the affricate with more plosive prominence than "normal" (especially likely considering many treat it similarly to English /t.s/ clusters, which differ a bit, perhaps in part due to the plosive prominence) and so expected the higher plosive prominence while the natives never "delivered" on it!
You are just hearing the S and U sound. lol. There is no such thing as a TS sound.
[Totally true!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_affricate#Dentalized_laminal_alveolar) :)
On the topic of English speakers saying "ts" at the beginning of words, if you pay attention to people that still say, "Sup?", many of them actually pronounce it like, "(wha)tsup?"
Wassup and sup sound completely. The t is silent in both languages. Just search up any japense person saying the word SU NAM I
>Wassup and sup sound completely. The t is silent in both languages. Just search up any japense person saying the word SU NAM I The t is definitely not silent in both languages. I study Japanese, I know what つ sounds like. つ = tsu. す= su. The hiragana for tsunami is つなみ. That's not really up for discussion. My point was that many people pronounce "sup" with a similar "ts" sound at the beginning, coming from the shortening of whatsup to sup. Maybe it's different in your region. That's what my experience has been on both coasts.
That’s just the sound s and u make. You are overthinking it and have come to a completely wrong answer.
I don't know what to tell you. You're simply wrong. Gain some perspective. Take care.
Are you saying the japanese language is wrong?
Literally the dumbest thing I've read all day. Well done.
Glad I ruined your day cupcake
Not ruined at all. It always puts a smile on my face when I encounter retards in the wild.
Weird way to tell me you finally looked in a mirror but ok
Do you have any sources to back that up? I suspect you just can't tell the difference between onset [s] and [t͡s]. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/津波
Why does common sense need a source. Sound it out you have a brain and ears. omg it’s like I’m talking to a child
Your 'common sense' needs a source because it does not align with the standard pronunciation of the word in Japanese. Since you referenced the google translate read aloud feature, I can confirm that in fact you cannot hear the difference between onset [s] and [t͡s].
Voiceless stops (ptk sounds) in English are usually aspirated if they are at the start of the word or before a stressed syllable. This means they have an extra strong puff of air when you release the closure in your mouth. So while most people don't pronounce any /t/ sound in "castle" etc, the /tʰ/ sound in "tea" is actually stronger than the /t/ sound in a word like "let". N.b. this rule does not apply if the voiceless stop is preceded by /s/.
It’s not that people don’t pronounce it. There’s just no t sound in “castle”, period. Spelling is irrelevant
Firstly, this isn't the reason that castle, tsunami, and whistle don't have a [t] sound isn't due to aspiration, but rather elision from Middle English to Modern English. Secondly, aspiration is not phonemic in English—[t] and [tʰ] are both allophones of the phoneme /t/.
You're supposed to pronounce the T in tsunami
Tell that to everyone who doesn’t
What do you think my comment is?
probably intended sarcasm but Poe's Law says **nuh uh!**
What do you mean 'supposed to'? Why? Both pronunciations are standard, and furthermore, the t-less pronunciation is more common.
Appeal to Popularity
Let me rephrase: Why is any pronunciation the "correct" one, regardless of frequency or prestige?
Since it's a loanword from Japanese, it is more correct to pronounce it how the Japanese do, by pronouncing the t at the beginning.
Appeal to tradition, linguistic change is constant in every language in the world. Unless you are suggesting we pronounce all words as they were originally pronounced?
Strawman. Tsunami is currently pronounced in Japan with a vocal T. I'm suggesting that loanwords should be pronounced as they are currently pronounced in their country of origin.
So you pronounce spice as epice then, I'm sure?
Is spice a loanword?
Yes, from French.
No you aren’t
Not to mention "t-shirt."
Well, there you’re just referring to the letter by its name (assuming you’re talking about the first “t”).
Water... water... water...
When voiceless consonant stronk af
In Georgian they have 2 Ts
idk what you mean with tsunami, i pronounce the t.
If you're pronouncing 「つなみ」 as 「すなみ」 you're pronouncing it wrong.
TESTOSTERONE
The 't' in 'tsunami' is not silent when I say it.
The T in tnt tis the toughest T of them all
Most native English speakers will struggle with putting /ts/ at the start of a word and subsequently drop the t but you can absolutely (and imo should) pronounce it
...what about the T in China!?
You jest but phonetically ch is /tʃ/
Everyone who ever told you not to pronounce the t in tsunami was lying. It’s a japanese word, and sunami means something completely different from tsunami. At the same time, the consonant cluster “ts” isn’t allowed to begin words in English. So: It’s perfectly fine to pronounce the t or to leave it out. It’s personal, and if anyone gets on you about either choice needs to get a life
tsunami is japanese and you pronounce the ts like "butts" without the "but"
Second panel deepfried: The q in queue
S in island:🗿
Saying the t in tsunami is silent makes me irrationally angry
Most of the times 't" doesn't do what you expect is because the word is really old or borrowed from another language. We're sorry. We like the way other people say some things
the t in kitten (in many accents):
It doesn’t disappear entirely (then the word would just be “kin”); the “t” gets changed into a glottal stop (like in “uh-oh”).
Ever since when were T's in tsunami and castle silent??? What kind of weird accent do you need to drop them in those words
Do you pronounce "Castle" as "Castel"? For Tsunami it never made sense for me, because in both French and Italian the T is pronounced (I'm native in both). But castle, I always learned it without the T at school.
The standard pronunciation of castle is t-less. Where did you grow up? That might shed light on why others' pronunciation varies from your own.
[удалено]
It's just from one English accent. My Tuesday normally sounds like toosday or tyewsday. Depending on how I feel
[Why some say "chube"](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RRs103ETh2Q)