d Sound: How to Pronounce the Consonant d (/d/ Phoneme)

How to Pronounce the d Sound

It is a sound from the ‘Consonants Pairs’ group and it is called the ‘Voiced alveolar stop’. This means that you stop the airflow between your tongue and the ridge behind your teeth.

The /d/ sound is made through the mouth and it is Voiced which means that you vibrate your vocal chords to make the sound.

It is defined by the motion of your tongue and it is a stop sound, which is a sound made by building up air pressure by stopping air flow and then releasing it. In this case you stop the airflow the your tongue against the area behind the top teeth.

To produce the sound block the airflow by placing your tongue behind the top teeth, then release the pressure by pulling the tongue back into your mouth, while voicing out.

Examples of the d Sound

Here are some words that begin with the d sound:

director /dəˈrektə/

data /ˈdeɪtə/

derive /deraɪv/

develop /dɪˈveləp/

Here are some words with the d sound in the middle:

idea /aɪˈdɪə/

understand /ˌʌndəˈstænd/

already /ɔːlˈredi/

education /ˌedjʊˈkeɪʆən/

Here are some words with the d sound at the end:

decide /dɪˈsaɪd/

kind /kaɪnd/

word /wɜːd/

friend /frend/

So, that’s it for the d sound but we have made additional videos on each of the groups of sounds, Vowels, Diphthongs, Single Consonants, or Consonant Pairs as well as a video explaining the phonetic chart. Remember we also teach classes via Skype and Google Hangouts, you can book a class right here on our site. Visit the ‘Shop‘ to choose your teacher and start learning.