Pronunciation: 'ed' endings
Regular verbs in the simple past all end in 'ed'. These two small letters can be pronounced in three different ways. In the programme we find out what these different pronunciations are and give our challenger Sebastian the chance to produce the correct sounds in our role-play.

Listen to the programme!

Pronunciation: '-ed' endings

There are three different ways to pronounce the 'ed' ending of regular verbs in the simple past tense: / Id / , / t / or / d /.

The pronunciation depends on the sound at the end of the infinitve of the main verb and whether it is voiced or not.

/Id / infinitives that end in the sounds /t/ or /d/	/ d / infinitives that end in a voiced sound	/ t / infinitves that end in an unvoiced sound
needed hated dated seated	lived chilled enjoyed tried	shopped picked wished crunched

A voiced sound is one that vibrates in your throat when you say it. For more information and for a technique for finding out whether a sound is voiced or not, download Nuala's description below.

To see a list of voiced and unvoiced sounds, vist our Pronunciation Tips section here.

As well as some consonant sounds, all vowels sounds are voiced.




Download Nuala's grammar explanation and table (pdf - 41 K)

Download this programme (mp3 - 1.8 MB)

Download Nuala's tip for finding voiced sounds (mp3 - 169 K)

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Now it's your turn to practise ed endings . Go to our quiz page on this subject here.

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