Nice to meet you. Strong form of 'to'

[Rachel Adams]

Hello.

Is the pronunciation of 'to' as [FONT=&quot]/tu/ or [/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]strong form[/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]/tuː/ uncommon in spoken English? The transcription for 'to' in English File is [/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]/ə/ not [/FONT][FONT=&quot]/tuː/ or [/FONT][FONT=&quot]/tu/ in 'Nice to meet you.'
Is the schwa usually not clearly heard as well as not being stressed?[/FONT]

 

[Rachel Adams]

Yes, if there is no reason to stress it (as, for example, "I was driving to school, not from school".)

In most dialects it is fairly clearly heard.

In 'nice to meet you', the 'to' is not clearly heard. At least in the audio which I listened to.

 

[emsr2d2]

In 'nice to meet you', the 'to' is not clearly heard. At least in the audio which I listened to.

If you can, please provide a link to that audio. At least the "t" should be audible even if the "o" vanishes.

 

[Rachel Adams]

If you can, please provide a link to that audio. At least the "t" should be audible even if the "o" vanishes.

I will. Yes, the 't' is definitely audible. That's why I asked if it's wrong to say that the schwa is usually neither stressed nor clearly heard.

I coudn't download the audio but I found another audio on youtube. But here it's pronounced as 'tu'. At least that's how I hear it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMGj60E6AV0 At 3:54 If I am right, then it's pronounced either as tə or tu or even as tu: if stressed for some reason.

 

[GoesStation]

I coudn't download the audio but I found another audio on youtube. But here it's pronounced as 'tu'. At least that's how I hear it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMGj60E6AV0 At 3:54 If I am right, then it's pronounced either as tə or tu or even as tu: if stressed for some reason.

That's a clear example of the schwa pronunciation in unstressed to. The vowel is also very short when it's not stressed.

 

[emsr2d2]

In 'nice to meet you', the 'to' is not clearly heard.

Yes, the 't' is definitely audible.

When you said "the to is not clearly heard", I thought you meant that no part of the word was audible.

 

[Rachel Adams]

When you said "the to is not clearly heard", I thought you meant that no part of the word was audible.

No, I meant only the schwa. Maybe I don't hear it well as a non-native speaker. Is it clearly heard?

 

[SoothingDave]

Yes, it's heard. It's pretty much impossible to make a "T" sound followed by "M" without some sort of vowel-like utterance in between.

 

[GoesStation]

No, I meant only the schwa. Maybe I don't hear it well as a non-native speaker. Is it clearly heard?

Russian has many consonant clusters that don't exist in English. I don't think /tm/ is one of them, but /dm/ certainly exists. It's quite possible the Russophone ear is tuned to ignore the schwa in /tm/ which the Anglophone one hears clearly.

When Anglophones say "Dmitri", they tend to interpose a syllable between the /d/ and the /m/.

 

[emsr2d2]

When Anglophones say "Dmitri", they tend to interpose a syllable between the /d/ and the /m/.

To the point that when we write "Dmitri" in English, we tend to spell it "Dimitri".

 

[Rachel Adams]

Yes, it's heard. It's pretty much impossible to make a "T" sound followed by "M" without some sort of vowel-like utterance in between.

I hear it too but it's not (the pronunciation) very clear to me without the stress and the strong form tu:.

 

[Rachel Adams]

That's the nature of the besat. The schwa sound in English is (almost) always unstressed and always less clearly defined than the vowel it replaces,

Then my ears aren't that deaf to English sounds. It's heard but it's not very clear. So I was right.

 

[SoothingDave]

That's the nature of the besat. The schwa sound in English is (almost) always unstressed and always less clearly defined than the vowel it replaces,

That's sort of the point of the schwa. It's the noise we make when we don't need or want to make the proper vowel sound.