How It EndED

As you already know, English pronunciation is not that easy. But I'm going to make life a little less complicated. I'm going to explain how to pronounce -ed at the end of regular verbs. I can imagine that you're thinking tha it sounds like it's spelled. But no! Well, yes, but no! Let me explain...

1) The truth is that only the verbs that end in -d and -t, -ed is pronounced like ed. For example:

end >>> ended / want >>> wanted

grade >>> graded / hate >>> hated

Did you notice that with the -ed at the end, there's another syllable!

2) This phenomenon doesn't happen with other regular verbs that end with other consonant sounds (Spanish phonetic in parenthesis). For example:

like >>> liked (laikt)

love >>> loved (lovt)

laugh >>> laughed (laft)

kiss >>> kissed (kist)

walk >>> walked (wokt)

watch >>> watched (wacht)

In these cases, the -ed sounds more like a t and there's NOT another syllable!

3) Now let's look at the curious case of regular verbs ending in -y:

play >>> played (pleid)

study >>> studied (sta-did)

In the first example, the y acts like a consonant and it is similar to the other verbs in group 2. But in the second example, the y acts like a vowel. The vowel sound remains but the -ed is pronounced like a d and it doesn't add an extra syllable either.


Now listen.

It can't be so simple, can it? But it is!