Help! pronunciation problem!twice posted SORRY!

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jennycullen

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Hi, teachers! Please tell me how to pronounce the Italic part of these words cotton, Hilton, important etc.Since I find that there're like two ways to pronounce them,one of them is easy for me to do,the other is quite difficult because it seems one need to use their nasal cavity or throat maybe.Is it American accent or not?
I've listened so many times but still fail to make it sound more like a native speaker. I don't understand the linguistic terms, so is there any way to show me how to do it in plain English?

Many thanks!
 
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Tdol

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When do you have trouble pronouncing them?

PS I have deleted the duplicate post
 

jennycullen

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When do you have trouble pronouncing them?

PS I have deleted the duplicate post
Normally I don't. I just wanna try saying these words like a native speaker would say. This is just me trying to do the accent, and it didn't sound right.
 

5jj

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I'll try, for British English, though it's not easy in plain English.

In slow, careful speech, there are two syllables, the second being pronounced like the normal pronunciation of the bold letters in tonight. The vowel, represented by the letter o in the second half of cotton and the first half of tonight is the same weak sound we hear in the and about.

In this careful pronunciation of cotton, our tongue leaves the ridge behind our upper front teeth (where it was for the t sound) during the vowel sound, and then returns to it for the n sound. As it returns, the air passage to the nose opens, and the air passes through the nose for the n.

In normal conversation, the second syllable is shorter. The tongue doesn't actually leave the ridge. At the end of the t sound, the air passage to the nose opens, and the t turns into n.
 

jennycullen

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Thank you very much for yuor kind answer. I know it may be a tricky question. Now I've got the British way of pronouncing it(I still find it a liitle bit confusing) and I hope to know how people in US pronounce it, because I tend to speak American English more often.
 
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