Flap t after L (question for Americans)

This is a recording of a bunch of "lt" words from the Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary:

http://www.antimoon.com/temp/flap-t-after-l-in-cepd.mp3

In all these words, the American speaker pronounces a flap t after L. Does it sound unnatural or sloppy to you?

Thanks for your input.

The audio was so far in the red it was hard to hear clearly, but:

1.) Some of those words (builder? etc) were "d" words, not "t" words, weren't they?

2.) It didn't sounds flap to me, and if it was flap, then yes, it's sloppy.

Delta? Adultery? There should be no reason to flap any of those t's. And anyone who flaps them, doesn't sound right.

Aren't the t's in the above recording "unaspirated" rather than "flapped"?

Timothy,

I think the first word is "filter" rather than "builder".

All of these cases have an L preceding the T. That makes it really awkward to flap since the tongue is already at the alveolar ridge.

builter?
alteration
adultery
delta
cultivate
penalty
voltage
walter

not sure about the first word, but the rest sound odd with a flap

Thanks, matti. I would like to hear some other opinions. Does the speaker sound sloppy or odd to you?

I would like to get an answer to my question. I'm not really interested in discussing whether the sound used by the speaker qualifies as a proper flap t. It clearly isn't a normal t because it is voiced.

P.S. The first word is "filter" by the way.

filter?! wow, that sounded strange

the words definitely sound odd with the flap T after the L

filter - sounds really odd (would never have been able to tell that it was filter)
alteration - sounds odd, but understandable
adultery - sounds OK
delta - sounds OK
cultivate - sounds OK
penalty - sounds OK
voltage - sounds OK
walter - sounds odd

Bottom line is, whether the flap "t" is permissible or not, it sounds careless and sloppy. Why teach ESL students, or yourself, to speak that way? Granted, if someone's been raised that way, they may feel stilted or fake using a normal "t," but someone who is just learning, should learn the most proper English they can.

That's like saying the "ah" version of the short a is permissable, but please don't teach your students to say "glahss" when they should be saying "glass".

The flapped T isn't just "permissible" in American English in certain positions. It's pretty much standard in certain words. It's not "sloppy" or "improper" to us, it's the way it's supposed to be said. So you might as well expose your students to how English will be pronounced by normal people in a normal setting. If that setting will be in North America, they should be aware that "liddle" and "bedder" mean "little" and "better". If they are going to be walking around London, they will need to at least know that "ahsk" is the same as "ask" and "grahss" is "grass". They don't need to know the ins and outs of every accent variation, but they also need to know what to expect when a native speaker opens their mouth, so that they are not confused or mistake these words for different ones. So that does mean knowing the major features of the particular English they are learning.

Uriel, I was talking about situations where the flap t is optional or unusual. I was talking about the particular list of words on this thread. There is no reason an ESL student should be taught "filder" for "filter," etc.

It's obvious you wouldn't teach them to avoid "bedder" "liddle", etc.

There is a distinction, which probably isn't made in ESL classes should really should be, between teaching students something so that they will recognize it, and teaching it so that they will use it. Should ESL students be told that some people pronounce "little" as "liddle"? Yes, at some point (although probably not in an introductory course). It wouldn't be good for ESL students to be going around wondering what this "liddle" word means. But should they be taught to pronounce "latter" as "ladder"? Absolutely not. Yes, there isn't a strong distinction between the pronunciation of those two words, but they should be pronounced differently, and ESL students will probably have so speech that is already difficult to understand without any in unnecessary mergers. And yes, completely avoiding the flap-t might result in speech that sounds stilted or overly formal, but that's better than speech that is difficult to understand. ESL students should focus on being understood first, and work on speaking like a native only after they have mastered that.

<<Should ESL students be told that some people pronounce "little" as "liddle"? Yes, at some point (although probably not in an introductory course). It wouldn't be good for ESL students to be going around wondering what this "liddle" word means. But should they be taught to pronounce "latter" as "ladder"?>>

Yes, if they are taught American English, because that's not how "some" people pronounce them, it's how "everyone" does in General American English.

You've got a point, Johnny. Virtually no one in the US is ever going to say the T in latter as a real T in normal speech.

I get what Timothy is saying about learning the basics first and then the variations later, but what if you are not learning the language in a strictly classroom setting? One of the first language questions my Mexican boyfriend asked me about concerned "gonna" -- what did it mean and how is it used. I can't very well tell him, oh, don't worry about that, because it's not proper English and you'll never need to use it. He was asking about it because he hears it all the time in the workplace, and he hears it all the time because it's how 99% of us say "I'm going to" in actual speech, especially when we are using it in the sense of the future tense ("I'm probably gonna eat lunch around eleven). We might be more inclined to say the full "go-eeng tu" when actually using it in reference to a destination ("I'm going to France next summer.")

In the same vein, anyone learning to speak Spanish around Mexicans needs to know that final S's get dropped a lot, CH often becomes SH, and -ado endings frequently become something that sounds like "ow". People ask for fish in the cafeteria line at work as "peskow", wetbacks (mojados) are often known as "mohows" not "mo-ha-dos", and it is no accident that the American slang term for jail is hoosegow -- that's exactly how you say "juzgado" (judged). Do I care if someone somewhere is sniffing at these practices as low class? Not much. I just want to be able to decipher what ordinary people are saying. So might an ESL student, once they venture out of the classroom.

Of course it's important to know what's inappropriate slang* or might have negative social connotations. Language is a social tool and how you talk can reflect on you. But common pronunciations that aren't completely textbook, like gonna or gotta or liddle, aren't quite the same thing. People naturally say ya for you, tuh for to, dunno for don't know, and slide right over 've in contractions in natural rapid speech.

*Not that I'm calling all slang bad, it's just that you've really got to know what you're doing to use slang -- or dialect -- correctly. It's not for the uninitiated. On the other hand, explaining that a lot of people might naturally SAY "it's just that ya really gotta know what you're doing" is just being kind -- because it's true, and they're going to hear it. Sorry, "gonna hear it".