Spelfabet

3 thoughts on “d as in educate”

1. Jeanette February 22, 2022 at 10:39 am

   Hi Alison,
   Am I right in thinking that the letter d can also sound as j (affricate) in word initial position with a letter u and sound ‘yoo’ following (with the same co-articulation as mid-word), as in due, during, durable, dual, duet, duty – in Australian English? Are the words do and due pronounced identically in American English?

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   1. alison Post authorFebruary 22, 2022 at 11:51 am

      Hi Jeanette, yes, because the sound /j/ is actually an affricate which is a combination of /d/ and /zh/ as in vision, treasure and beige, there is some overlap in spelling of these two sounds, e.g. in the words ‘soldier’, ‘education’ and ‘adjust’. It’s the same process that makes many young children confuse words like ‘cheese’ and ‘trees’, they are phonetically very close. In Australian English ‘due’ and ‘do’ are not homophones but in American English they are. I’m not sure where you are, or whether you’re a speech pathologist/linguist, but the vowels in ‘new’ and ‘stupid’ are other examples of this vowel variation, I say /you/ as the first vowel in both words, but in the US the vowel is /oo/. Hope that makes sense, Alison

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2. Moira August 3, 2022 at 7:07 pm

   Thanks Alison! Just wondering if you could add more words, thanks so far though!

   Thxx | Moira

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