pronunciation of words to, too, two

Danilo   Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:57 pm GMT
I have 2 questions about pronunciation of words to, too, two

First: this words are pronounced the same way?

Second: In the dictionary the transcription shows this:
aspirated t + u: [tu:]

why apparently when I hear them, it sounds like this?:
aspirated t + ju: [t_hju:]
or
ch equals in church + ju: [chju:]
Caspian   Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:10 pm GMT
They're all pronounced the same way, [tu:].
Poliglob   Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:33 pm GMT
Ordinarily they're pronounced the same [tu:], but I've noticed lately that some persons seem to be giving 'two' the second pronunciation that you mentioned. (I don't know whether they do that with 'to' and 'too' as well.)

At first all the persons I heard saying it were young women, but since then I've heard a man saying it too.
Milton   Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:47 pm GMT
I've heard the word Vancouver being pronounced with [kju(w)] instead of [ku(w)], on CBC News. It could be the local pronunciation...
Danilo   Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:02 am GMT
Is common romanian native speakers make mistakes pronunciating [tu:]?
Laurie   Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:26 am GMT
Technically they're pronounced the same way, but in general spoken language is a little more subtle than that. The length and emphasis change depending on which one is being used. Of course, this isn't that helpful, but I think it's important to say they're not really 'identical'.
Jason L.   Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:29 pm GMT
Hmm. The following is an amateur hypothesis.

It's know that "to" is rarely spoken in its "strong" form, where the vowel gets its full value of [u:]. Even on the radio or in newscasts, it's usually [t@].

It's also known that in some speakers, such as Southeastern U.K. speakers or younger Southern or Western U.S. speakers, the /u:/ vowel is fronted, so it sounds in between the traditional [u:] and the French u or German u-umlaut ([y:]). In Australia, this pronunciation is endemic. In some cases, this is manifested as a short i (as in "bit") followed by a long u. Perhaps the speakers in your area are u-fronters of either ilk, and so you hear a short i before the u, and you interpret it as a [j] (a "yod", as in the first sounds in "yellow" or "Eucalyptus").
wowowow   Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:48 am GMT
umm, I'm a native, and they're all pronounced EXACTLY the same ALL THE TIME. I've literally never heard anybody pronounce those words any other way than t + u.
Travis   Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:19 am GMT
Actually, I myself am used to "to" very frequently being pronounced as [@(:)] or sometimes [u(:)] after sonorants, vowel length depending on what follows, but also as the preceding vowel being shortened, as if it still started with a /t/. I notice this in a lot of North American English speakers after "-ing", but in at least the dialect here it occurs far more widely than what I have observed in most NAE dialects I have heard.