The Sounds of American English
The Stops
Stops are characterized by the complete obstruction of the airstream coming out of your mouth. Your tongue, as one of the articulators which are part of this group of consonants, is the key element in producing these sounds accurately.
Stops are divided into three subgroups:
1. Bilabial Stops
2. Alveolar Stops
3. Velar Stops
The question regarding the difference or similarity of consonants in two different languages can help us analyze these phonemes in detail. Let’s take a look at the following chart:
| Phoneme | Spanish | English |
| /b/ | voiced-bilabial | voiced-bilabial |
| /p/ | voiceless-bilabial | voiceless-bilabial |
| /d/ | voiced-dental | voiced-alveolar |
| /t/ | voiceless-dental | voiceless-alveolar |
| /g/ | voiced-velar | voiced-velar |
| /k/ | voiceless-velar | voiceless-velar |
The most important difference we have to point out is the fact that /t/ and /d/ are different in the two languages. Whereas they are dental sounds in Spanish, we must remember that when these sounds are articulated in English, they are alveolar.
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