t in "/tɔːk/" vs t in "/treɪn/"

[Charlie Bernstein]

I think if you had had some training in phonetics you would realise that the /t/ in 'talk' is very different from the 't' in 'train' for many native speakers of English . . . .

Some people might do that. I don't. It's a T.

I feel like I'm getting gaslighted here!

[GoesStation]

Some people might do that.

What do you hear when you listen to the American and Canadian speakers' samples here? (They all pronounce the /t/ the same way.)

[jutfrank]

Train is not pronounced chrain anywhere I've ever been!

Well, it's not exactly like 'chrain' but it's pretty close, I think.

It's a hard T. Like talk.

I guarantee you, you don't pronounce it like that.

[Piscean]

It's actually difficult to pronounce the /t/ of talk followed immediately by a /r/ + vowel without inserting a very brief schwa-like vowel between the /t/ and the /r/.

[Charlie Bernstein]

What do you hear when you listen to the American and Canadian speakers' samples here? (They all pronounce the /t/ the same way.)

I hear a bit of ch in some of them. (It might even be all of them. The recordings aren't all very distinct.)

I understand that some people do it. There are all kinds of ways to speak English. I just don't think it's universal.

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . I guarantee you, you don't pronounce it like that.

1. You've never heard me talk.

2. It's a small point.

3. We're getting nowhere here.

4. I think the original question has been answered. Let's pull the plug on this one!

[GoesStation]

Do you pronounce "train" like "terrain"? The only way to avoid softening the /t/ into a "ch"-like sound before an /r/ is to interpose a schwa, however brief it might be.

[Charlie Bernstein]

I love this chread.

[shadowsinner]

Transcriptions between slashes are phonemic, not phonetic. Native speakers think of the sounds in the words you mention as the same sound, but they are actually different allophones. The /t/ of 'train' is post alveolar [t̠], while that of 'talk' is alveolar and aspirated [tʰ].

There are so many allophones of most phonemes, most of which native speakers are completely unaware of, that most dictionaries, course books, grammars and teachers of English stick with phonemic transcriptions.

Piscean,

According to this website: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tree#Pronunciation the word tree is transcribed as [t̠ɹ̠̊˔ʷɪi̯]. Do you think this is an accurate transcription? Some sites show [ʈʂ] or even [t͡s], and so I'm confused as to which is best.

Thanks for your help.

[emsr2d2]

Initially, I thought the idea of "train" sounding like "chrain" was absurd. Then I said "train" aloud and realised that it sounded remarkably similar. Then I said aloud what I would say if I actually saw the non-existent word "chrain" and realised it sounded exactly like the way I say "train". I can, of course, say "train" differently - if I were enunciating very carefully, I would be able to make it clear that it's a "t" then an "r" but in everyday speech, that's not the case.