Pronunciation of internet

nice   Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:38 am GMT
Hi,please help me with the pronunciation of "internet". Should the "t" after "n" be aspirated or glottalised?
Milton   Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:57 am GMT
I pronounce it like innerne(t).
non native speakers of English are not familiar with the -nt- being pronounced as -n- in N.A. English...I've talked to a Dutch guy recently...he asked me where an agency was...I responded: In the center /cenner/ of the city...He asked: in what? That's too bad that non natives' English tends to be overpronounced and sometimes they fail to understand the real spoken English.
Guest   Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:00 pm GMT
Milton...you are wrong. We all are aware of this difference. You know, we watch hollywood movies and pay attention to each and every word delivered by actors.

Words like International, advantage also fall into the above catagory.
Gabriel   Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:41 pm GMT
I first became acutely aware of that pronunciation watching CNN. I think it was the voice of James Earl Jones, wasn't it, saying "This is CNN i[n]ernational, from the CNN ce[n]er in Atla[n]a." The authoritative tones also sent the message that this pronunciation was perfectly acceptable.
Travis   Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:52 pm GMT
Note that not all speakers of North American English merge intervocalic /n/ and /nt/ before an unstressed vowel, even though the merger of such is very common in NAE. At least here, intervocalic /nt/ before an unstressed vowel is realized as [4~] rather than [n]. Furthemore, vowels before intervocalic /n/ are long here whereas vowels before intervocalic /nt/ are short here.
Gabriel   Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:39 pm GMT
Point taken, Travis. What I transcribed as [n] could well have been [4~], except that at the time I couldn't tell them apart. As I got more and more exposed to it, I became able to distinguish 'winter' from 'winner' when spoken by North Americans (I'd like to think that I can also produce the sounds, but maybe that's too ambitious of me).
Lazar   Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:02 pm GMT
I usually pronounce a real plosive [t] in "internet". Overall, I think my dialect is more conservative than most of NAE in the treatment of /nt/.

I usually simplify intervocalic /nt/ to [n]:

- in contractions ending in <'nt>, as well as "went", "want", "wanted", "wanting"
- in "twenty" and "plenty (of)"
- in "gentleman"
- in some words that end in /n=t/, like "student", "sergeant", "ancient", although I don't think I would be likely to simplify in "nascent"
- in "amount", "account" (but I'd probably be less likely to simplify in "accounting")

I sometimes simplify it in:

- "county" - especially when used as an attributive, like "the Suffolk County DA"
- "center" - I would probably simplify it in "the center of town", but not in "a center of learning"
- "counter" - I often simplify it in the household sense, but I don't think I would simplify it in the sense of "somone or something that counts"
- "count (verb)", "counted", "counting", "pint"

I pretty much never simplify it in:

- "Internet", "interactive", etc
- "winter", "banter", "cantor", "lantern", "saunter"
- "gentle" (but see "gentleman" above), "dental", "dentist"

In these words, /nt/ reduction sounds off to me.
Lazar   Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:04 pm GMT
Typo - I meant "contractions ending in <n't>.
Jérémy   Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:14 pm GMT
<That's too bad that non natives' English tends to be overpronounced and sometimes they fail to understand the real spoken English.>

That's not THE real spoken English. That's ONE real spoken English. Those who pronounce "Internet" with "t" do not overpronounce it. They just pronounce it in a non-American way.
fjfjfj   Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:38 pm GMT
I say "in te' net" with a schwa in "te" or sometimes "inte' ne'" with a glottal stop at the end or even complete elision of the final 't'.

I am from England. Non-rhotic.
fungi   Wed Aug 22, 2007 5:32 pm GMT
Why are words like internet and international get pronounced as [innernet] and [innernetional]? I tried saying those words like that, but I felt awkward and didn't feel right. From the beginning when I first learned English, I was taught to pronounce [t] in such words.
Travis   Wed Aug 22, 2007 6:31 pm GMT
>><That's too bad that non natives' English tends to be overpronounced and sometimes they fail to understand the real spoken English.>

That's not THE real spoken English. That's ONE real spoken English. Those who pronounce "Internet" with "t" do not overpronounce it. They just pronounce it in a non-American way.<<

Sure... and I assume that "one real spoken English" is RP...
Travis   Wed Aug 22, 2007 6:40 pm GMT
>>Why are words like internet and international get pronounced as [innernet] and [innernetional]? I tried saying those words like that, but I felt awkward and didn't feel right. From the beginning when I first learned English, I was taught to pronounce [t] in such words.<<

Partly it may be how you were taught to English, but the matter is that, as I explained earlier, there are those North American English dialects in which "inner" and "inter-" are not homophones but are distinguished even though "inter-" does not actually contain [t]. Rather, they are distinguished by vowel length and or [n] versus [4~] in such dialects.