Pronunciation of -ed forms (and exceptions)

Hello there !

Today I'm dealing with one difficult issue for Spanish speakers of English: the pronunciation of the -ed endings in regular past tenses and past participles. There are a great deal of people who think that there is no logic behind this. However, there is a logic and it is related to the sound. In fact, it depends on the vocal cords located in the larynx !  Let's delve into this.

There are three different ways of pronouncing -ed endings: [d], [t] and [ɪd]. All these forms depend entirely on the vibration (or not) when pronouncing the last sound of the verb in the infinitive form. 

a) If the infinitive ends in a voiced sound (a sound that requires vibration in the vocal cords), it is pronounced with another voiced sound [d]. Isn't this logical ? So, for example, the last sound of the verb 'play' is [ɪ], which is a voiced sound, so its past tense 'played' is pronounced with a [d]:[pleɪd]. The same thing happens, for instance, with the verb 'transform'. The last sound is [m]. To make an [m] the vocal cords vibrate, so the past tense 'transformed' is pronounced [trɶns'fɔ:md]. We pronounced [d] when the last letters of the verb in the infinitive are <l>, <m>, <n>, <ge>, <b>, <g>, <v>, <ze> or a vowel.

b) If the infinitive ends in a voiceless sound (when the vocal cords do not vibrate), the past tenses is pronounced with the voiceless sound [t]. This happen with the verb 'stop', whose final sound [p] is voiceless, so, through assimilation, the past tense 'stopped' is pronounced [stɒpt]. The same thing happens with the verb 'knock'. Its final sound is [k], which is voiceless, so the past tense 'knocked' is pronounced [nɒkt]. We pronounce [t] when the last letters of the infinitive form are <p>, <k>, <gh>, <ce> or <ch>.

c) If the infinitive ends in [t] or [d] sounds, the pronunciation will always be [ɪd]. Examples of this pronunciation are 'needed' ['ni:dɪd] or 'wanted' ['wɒntɪd].

Has this been difficult? Now, let's move to the exceptions. The previous rules apply to past tenses and past participles. However, there are some adjectives ending in -ed which are pronounced [ɪd] given that they are not formed from a verb. Here you have a list of them:

Adjectives ending in -ed pronounced [ɪd]

Ragged ['rɶgɪd]  [rɶgd] : wearing rags or tatters

Rugged ['rɅgɪd] : [rɅgd] rough, hard, strong

Crooked [krʊkɪd] [krʊkt]: not straight, bent.

Naked ['neɪkɪd] [neɪkt]: nude, with no clothes on.

Wretched ['reʧɪd] [reʧt]: extremely unfortunate or miserable

Wicked ['wɪkɪd] [wɪkt]: evil

Beloved [bi'lɅvɪd] [bi'lɅvd]: greatly loved.
Jagged [ˈdʒægɪd] [ˈdʒægd]: having sharp irregular teeth (for example a saw)
Legged: It has two pronunciations, ['legɪd] and [legd]

Finally, there are some words that follow the rules if they are derived from verbs, but are pronounced [ɪd] when they work as adjectives:

Blessed: The priest blessed him (verb): [blest]; the blessed Virgin (adjective) ['blesɪd]
Aged: My mum hasn't aged much (verb: 'envejecer') [eɪʤd]; the aged man (adjective: 'ajado')['eɪʤɪd]
Learned: He learned a lot yesterday at school (verb) [l3:nd]; a learned man (adjective) ['l3:nɪd]

Well, this is it. I hope you will have learnt how to pronounce -ed forms. As you see, English (despite the exceptions) remains a logical language. You can practise this doing this exercise. 

I'll keep in touch.