[General] how to pronounce this words ?

[The Phoenix]

twenties - thirties
i know how to pronounce them but i heard people - like me they are not native speakers - pronounce them with out the last t while i pronounce both of the Ts in this words
i am truly sry because you might think my question ridiculous but i've been confused about this for awhile
please help me

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by The Phoenix

twenties - thirties
i know how to pronounce them but i heard people - like me they are not native speakers - pronounce them with out the last t while i pronounce both of the Ts in this words
i am truly sry because you might think my question ridiculous but i've been confused about this for awhile
please help me

You've told us that you pronounce the words correctly, and some people you know do not. This is not an uncommon situation to find oneself in.
Here is the correct pronunciation:
/twenti:z/ /θɜ:ti:z/

[The Phoenix]

thanks a million for the correct pronunciation
and i am truly sry for bothering you & for sAYING " this words " not " These words "

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by The Phoenix

thanks a million for the correct pronunciation
and i am truly sry for bothering you & for sAYING " this words " not " These words "

You're welcome. Ask as many questions as you like, and don't be afraid of making mistakes.

[JeffM]

It might be also helpful to know the rules behind it. It is known as the flap T. A flap T occurs when T is between two vowel sounds. Forty or= vowel sound, y= vowel sound.

This is typical for American speakers. They say the following words with a D sound instead of a T. water, city, security.
But British speakers say these words with a T.

Hope that helps because you are sure to run into this with many other words.

[rtyuirty]

You can improve your pronunciation using podcast or some other education software such as panopreter, it's a freeware, when you run it on Windows vista PC, it will read any English words with Microsoft Anna voice, then you can following Anna's standard English reading and pronunciation. On the other hand, you can get mp3 audiobooks with it.

[The Phoenix]

thanks a lot pro

[huahuaying]

I am thinking about buying some wholesale water pipes from this company in China
but I am not sure if they are legal to bring in to the states? What are the laws on water pipes, bongs, and pipes?

[emsr2d2]

Originally Posted by JeffM

It might be also helpful to know the rules behind it. It is known as the flap T. A flap T occurs when T is between two vowel sounds. Forty or= vowel sound, y= vowel sound.

This is typical for American speakers. They say the following words with a D sound instead of a T. water, city, security.
But British speakers say these words with a T.

Hope that helps because you are sure to run into this with many other words.

You will also find that some British speakers lose that second T as well. This is sheer laziness and, without wishing to sound like a snob, would usually be found in "common" accents (ie lower class people). In that case, the T is not even pronounced like a soft D as it is in America. It is more of a glottal stop at the back of the throat, than a letter at all. If you imagine, with the word water, if you say "waw" and then quickly something similar to "uh" you will find that there is a strange (non)sound in between the two. Run the two together fast, and you have a mainly Southern, and common, pronunciation of the word water.

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by emsr2d2

You will also find that some British speakers lose that second T as well. This is sheer laziness

In a linguistic sense, the use of a glottal stop is more likely to be a sociocultural variant than a product of sheer laziness. There is probably a correlation between a glottal stop in 'bottle', and a /k/ on the end of something - /somethink/. If laziness was the cause, why go to extra trouble of making a hard /k/. Also, I'm not convinced that a glottal stop takes less effort to produce than a /t/.