She is training for a marathon and runs twenty miles a week.

Words 12 Difficulty Advanced Featured sound Silent T after N
shee she ihz is TRAY·nuhng training fer for uh a MEH·ruh·thahn marathon and and RUHNZ runs TWEHN·tee twenty MAHYLZ miles uh a WEEK week
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In casual American English, "She is training for a marathon and runs twenty miles a week" sounds like "shee ihz TRAY-nuhng fer uh MEH-ruh-thahn and RUHNZ TWEHN-tee MAHYLZ uh WEEK". Several things happen here, and the headline one is the Silent T after N: the T after N drops out entirely. Keep stressed words long, unstressed words short, and link the consonants forward into the vowels.

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Common mistakes

Pronouncing the silent T after N.

In "twenty", the "t" right after N is dropped — the tongue skips the T stop and moves directly from the N position to the next sound. /t/ is completely silent — the tongue skips the T stop and moves directly from the N position to the next sound.

Saying a clean "tr" instead of a "ch" sound.

In "training", the "tr" cluster blends into a "chr" sound — a natural American English pronunciation. /t/ shifts toward /tʃ/ ("ch"), so TR sounds like "chr".

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Why it sounds different

What makes this sentence sound American.

In "twenty", the "t" right after N is dropped — the tongue skips the T stop and moves directly from the N position to the next sound. This is called the Silent T after N, a small move that separates 'classroom' from 'native'. It comes out as TWEHN-tee.

The breakdown

What's happening in this sentence.

Small tricks that turn a textbook sentence into how an American actually says it.

(j/w)
Vowel-to-Vowel Linking between "she" & "is"A brief glide (y or w) bridges two vowels for smooth flow.
·
Reduced Words (to, for, of) in "she"Full vowel reduces to schwa /ə/ or other weak vowel. Consonants may simplify.
⌣
Consonant-to-Vowel Linking between "for" & "a"Final consonant "migrates" to next word — no pause between.
✕
Silent T/D Across Words between "and" & "runs"The /t/ or /d/ at the end is dropped — surrounding consonants flow directly.
t→∅
Silent T after N in "twenty"In "twenty", the "t" right after N is dropped — the tongue skips the T stop and moves directly from the N position to the next sound.
•
Unreleased Stops in "week"Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
Word by word

Tap any word for its full breakdown.

Each word has its own page with examples, common mistakes, and related words.

she shee is ihz training TRAY·nuhng for fer a uh marathon MEH·ruh·thahn and and runs RUHNZ twenty TWEHN·tee miles MAHYLZ a uh week WEEK
Watch out

Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.

The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.

01

Pronouncing the silent T after N.

In "twenty", the "t" right after N is dropped — the tongue skips the T stop and moves directly from the N position to the next sound. /t/ is completely silent — the tongue skips the T stop and moves directly from the N position to the next sound.

TWEHN-tee→TWEHN·tee
02

Saying a clean "tr" instead of a "ch" sound.

In "training", the "tr" cluster blends into a "chr" sound — a natural American English pronunciation. /t/ shifts toward /tʃ/ ("ch"), so TR sounds like "chr".

TRAY-nuhng→TRAY·nuhng
03

Pronouncing the vowel before M/N too pure.

In "and", the "a" vowel before M or N raises and fronts toward [eə] — the tongue pulls up and forward, breaking the vowel into a tense glide as it anticipates the nasal. The "/æ/" vowel raises and fronts before M or N — tongue pulls up and forward, producing a tense [eə] glide (between /e/ and /ə/). Not a pure /æ/.

and→and
04

Treating every L the same.

The L in "miles" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. Dark L adds a small schwa-like "uh" before the L. The back of the tongue lifts toward the soft palate.

MAHYLZ→MAHYLZ
Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Why is "she" said so quickly in this sentence?
Function words — articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, pronouns — reduce to short, unstressed schwa shapes in casual American speech. Pronouncing them fully like the dictionary entry is a dead giveaway of a textbook accent. Native speakers stress only the content words and let everything else collapse.
How are the words connected in casual American speech?
Americans don't pause between words. A consonant at the end of one word links forward into the vowel that starts the next; two vowels in a row get bridged by a tiny W or Y glide; an identical consonant repeated across a word boundary is held just once. The result is a continuous flow rather than a textbook word-by-word delivery.
Is this how the sentence is taught in textbooks?
Textbooks usually teach the citation form — every word pronounced fully, every consonant crisp, every vowel pure. Americans actually flap their Ts, drop function-word H's, link consonants forward into vowels, and reduce unstressed syllables to schwa. The respell on this page shows the casual form you'll hear in real conversations rather than the textbook version.

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