Final Stop Consonants Part 1: To Mute or Not to Mute?

In your journey learning English, you’ve undoubtedly come across words ending with the stop consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /d/, /g/, and /b/.

For example, words like:

• Stop – /stɔ[p]/
• Cat – /kæ[t]/
• Flag – /flæ[g]/

You’ve probably also noticed that English speakers may or may not mute these sounds (i.e. leave them unreleased) when they appear at the ends of words or syllables.

Throughout this course you’ll have noticed that I’ve marked unreleased stop consonants with brackets [].

For example:

• stop – /stɔ[p]/

For the linguistic nerds: what’s going on here is that stop consonants, those consonants where the articulation of the tongue in the mouth stops the air flow during the consonant, can be left unreleased. There’s no audible release after the stop consonant because the process of articulation isn’t completed, i.e. air isn’t allowed to flow out of the mouth again after it is stopped by the tongue or lips. They can also be referred to as ‘unreleased stops’ or ‘applosives’. In the field of linguistics, stop consonants are indicated with the symbol ˺ above the stop, though here I’ve used brackets [] to indicate the unreleased stop consonant.

What’s the rule?

• When a stop consonant appears at the end of a word or syllable that is followed by any other consonant it can be left unreleased.

For example:

• Stop them – /stɔ[p] ðem/
• Club mascot – /klɐ[b] ˈmæskət/
• Backdoor – /bæ[k]doː/
• Stag party – /stæ[g] ˈpɐːɾi/
• Football – /fʊ[t]boːl/
• Dad stopped – /dæ[d] stɔpt/

• When a stop consonant appears at the end of a phrase it can also be left unreleased.

For example:

• I can’t stop.             -/ɑe kɐːn[t] stɔ[p]/
• A big club.             -/ə bɪ[g] klɐ[b]/
• It’s her mistake. -/ɪts hɜː mɪsˈtæɪ[k]/
• Who’s bag?             -/hʉːz bæ[g]/
• That’s his cat. -/ðæts hɪz kæ[t]/
• I love my Dad. -/ɑe lɐv mɑe dæ[d]/

Note: did you notice how /t/ and /g/ sounds in the first two phrases were also muted?

Be aware that there’s nothing wrong with releasing stop consonants in all positions, in fact, many English speakers will both release them and leave them unreleased at times.

However, be sure when releasing stop consonants that you just hear a voiceless puff of air and not a schwa /ə/ sound as it will make it seem like another syllable/word is being inserted into the phrase, which can confuse English speakers.

For example: 

• Stop-eh – / stɔpə/
• Stop – / stɔp/

• Take-eh – / tæɪkə/
• Take – / tæɪk/

How’s the sound made?

To review how to make the 6 different stop consonant sounds see the consonant pronunciation tutorials for each of them at the start of this course.

But let’s quickly review stop consonants.

There are 6 stop consonants that can be split into 3 pairs of one unvoiced and one voiced stop consonant.

• /p/ and /b/ – point of articulation in the mouth = lips
• /t/ and /d/ – point of articulation in the mouth = tip of tongue/roof of mouth
• /k/ and /g/ – point of articulation in the mouth = back of tongue/roof of mouth

The movement of the mouth for each pair is the same however, /p/, /t/, and /k/ are unvoiced while /b/, /d/, and /g/ are voiced.

In order to mute any of these stop consonants you simply have to make the consonant sound by stopping the airflow through your mouth whether with your tongue or lips depending on the sound, and then not allow the airflow to continue once again.

Let’s go through an example using each stop consonant.

I’ll say the word first where the consonant is released and then I’ll say it where it’s muted.

• Stop – /stɔp/
• Stop – /stɔ[p]/

• Club – /klɐb/
• Club – /klɐ[b]/

• Take – /tæɪk/
• Take – /tæɪ[k]/

• Stag – /stæg/
• Stag – /stæ[g]/

• That – /ðæt/
• That – /ðæ[t]/

• Dad – /dæd/
• Dad – /dæ[d]/

Drilling exercises!

The topics below include drilling exercises for each of the pronunciation points you just learnt.

If you want to “drill down” and practice any or all of these pronunciation points, you can do so with these video exercises in order to solidify your pronunciation of these sounds.

If you can already pronounce these sounds with confidence, skip ahead to the next lesson.

But if you still have a little trouble either remembering the rules or making the sounds themselves, complete these exercises on a regular basis until you’ve nailed the pronunciation.

Tip: shorter and more frequent drilling sessions (e.g. 5 minutes per day) are more effective than longer infrequent sessions (e.g. 1 hour per week).