How to pronounce the D sound /d/
/d/ is a voiced consonant made at ridge behind the teeth (alveolar). Set the tongue tip on the ridge behind your top teeth, exactly as for T. Turn the voice on while the tongue is still touching — you should hear a short hum.
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How to make it
- 1Set the tongue tip on the ridge behind your top teeth, exactly as for T.
- 2Turn the voice on while the tongue is still touching — you should hear a short hum.
- 3Drop the tip and let the sound run straight into the vowel.
- 4There is no puff of air; if you hear one, you said T.
- Lips
- Neutral, slightly apart.
- Tongue
- Tip on the ridge behind the top teeth, sides sealed.
- Jaw
- Slightly open.
Feel it
Put a hand flat on your throat and say the sound. It should buzz under your fingers from the very start — if the buzz only arrives with the vowel, you are making the voiceless version.Where the sound appears
Keeping it through a whole line
David decided to drive down the road on Monday.
The old dog dug under the wooden door.
Minimal pairs to drill
Each of these is two words separated by exactly one sound. If a listener hears the wrong one, the problem is the contrast, not the effort.
If your first language is…
Nothing here is about ability. Every one of these is a sound system doing exactly what it was built to do, applied to a language that asks for something else.
- HindiUrdu
Hindi and Urdu split d into a dental and a retroflex sound, and English D is neither; put the tip on the ridge, not the teeth or the palate.
- Bengali
Bengali's retroflex d curls the tongue back, giving English D a darker colour than listeners expect.
- Mandarin
Mandarin has no voiced stops and no final D, so the sound is heard as an unaspirated T and often dropped at the end.
- Korean
Korean stops are grouped by aspiration, not voicing, so D and T land in the same category and the hum is the fix.
- Vietnamese
Vietnamese final stops are unreleased, so 'food' can sound truncated to an English listener.
- Spanish
Between vowels Spanish d softens to a th-like sound, so 'ready' can drift toward 'rethy'; keep full tongue contact.
- Portuguese
In Brazilian Portuguese d before an i sound becomes 'j', so 'day' can start as 'jay' and 'medal' can soften.
- German
German devoices final consonants, so 'bad' becomes 'bat' and 'road' becomes 'rote'; hold the hum to the end.
- Russian
Russian also devoices word-final consonants, and palatalises d before front vowels, so 'day' can sound softened.
- Turkish
Turkish devoices final stops, so a final D needs the voice deliberately kept on.
Straight answers
Is /d/ voiced or voiceless?
It is voiced. Put a hand on your throat and say it: you should feel a buzz the whole time. Every English vowel is voiced too, so the buzz never stops between this sound and the vowel next to it.
What words start with the D sound?
Common ones include door, day, down. In the middle of a word you get under, ready, medal, and at the end bad, food, road. Every one of those links to its own pronunciation page here.
How is /d/ spelled in English?
It is written "d", "dd", "ed". English spelling and English sound came apart centuries ago, so the same sound turns up under several spellings and the same spelling carries several sounds — which is why the sound, not the letter, is the thing to learn.
Why do Hindi & Urdu speakers find /d/ hard?
Hindi and Urdu split d into a dental and a retroflex sound, and English D is neither; put the tip on the ridge, not the teeth or the palate.
Record the D sound and see if it landed
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