The annual percentage yield on this account is quite competitive.

Words 10 Difficulty Intermediate Featured sound Flap T
dhee the AN·yoo·uhl annual per·SEHN·tuhj percentage YEELD yield ahn on dhihs this uh·KOWNT account ihz is KWAHYT quite kuhm·PEH·tuh·tihv competitive
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Americans pronounce "The annual percentage yield on this account is quite competitive" as "dhee AN-yoo-uhl per-SEHN-tuhj YEELD ahn dhihs uh-KOWNT ihz KWAHYT kuhm-PEH-tuh-tihv" in casual speech. Several things bend the textbook pronunciation. The headline is the Flap T — the T between vowels turns into a quick D-like flap. It lands on competitive, the kind of sound shift that makes everyday speech feel effortless. 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 "percentage", 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 hard "T" in the middle.

In "competitive", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. /t/ or /d/ becomes a quick tap [ɾ] — sounds like a soft D. The tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth.

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The breakdown

What's happening in this sentence.

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

V–V
Vowel-to-Vowel Linking between "the" & "annual"Between "the" and "annual", a brief "y" glide bridges the two vowels for smooth flow.
→ə
Reduced Words (to, for, of) in "the""the" is a function word — in connected speech, the full vowel reduces to a quick "dhee" sound and consonants may simplify.
ə→◌
Silent Schwa Before L/M/N/R in "annual"In "annual", the short unstressed vowel before "l" disappears — the schwa is absorbed and the "l" becomes the syllable nucleus on its own.
t→∅
Silent T after N in "percentage"In "percentage", the "t" right after N is dropped — the tongue skips the T stop and moves directly from the N position to the next sound.
C–V
Consonant-to-Vowel Linking between "yield" & "on"The "d" at the end of "yield" flows directly into the vowel starting "on" — the consonant migrates to the next word with no pause between.
Unreleased Stops in "quite"In "quite", the "t" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air.
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the dhee annual AN·yoo·uhl percentage per·SEHN·tuhj yield YEELD on ahn this dhihs account uh·KOWNT is ihz quite KWAHYT competitive kuhm·PEH·tuh·tihv
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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 "percentage", 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.

per-SEHN-tuhj→per·SEHN·tuhj
02

Saying a hard "T" in the middle.

In "competitive", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. /t/ or /d/ becomes a quick tap [ɾ] — sounds like a soft D. The tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth.

kuhm-PEH-tuh-tihv→kuhm·PEH·tuh·tihv
03

Pronouncing the vowel before M/N too pure.

In "annual", 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/.

AN-yoo-uhl→AN·yoo·uhl
04

Treating every L the same.

The L in "annual" 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.

AN-yoo-uhl→AN·yoo·uhl
Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Why do the T sounds turn into D-like sounds in this sentence?
That's the flap-T rule: when /t/ sits between two vowels — inside a single word, or across the boundary between two words — Americans replace the crisp T with a quick D-like flap. It's one of the most distinctive sounds of casual American speech and one of the first things to copy if you want to sound less textbook.
Why is "the" 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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