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So I can pronounce friend just fine. But when you add an s to it how do you transition from the d sound to the s (/z/) sound? Do you just ignore the d altogether?

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6 Answers 6

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You may pronounce it with a stopped /d/ or without it—/frɛndz/ or frɛnz/—in practice, nobody will notice.

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    I will notice. Perhaps Americans won't.
    – Michael Kay
    Nov 2, 2015 at 9:26
  • @MichaelKay you may notice, but both ways are equally correct. so it doesn't matter.
    – user428517
    Nov 2, 2015 at 22:43
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    @MichaelKay Perhaps I'm wrong. But Eastpond speakers don't seem to care: I've just listened to speeches by Cameron, Corbyn and the Queen, and all three waffle back and forth between including and omitting /d/ in friends, thousands, funds.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Nov 3, 2015 at 0:04
  • @StoneyB maybe you can't hear it well because you are not used to using it. But to a British native leaving out the d sounds very distinctly wrong and I can assure you that the three mentioned above are not leaving them out in speeches.
    – JamesRyan
    Nov 3, 2015 at 15:40
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    @JamesRyan I am quite used to using it: I was an actor for 30 years, trained to employ a rather old-fashioned mode of "diction" when it was required. I can assure you that those three vary between /nz/ and /ndz/ with stress and speed.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Nov 3, 2015 at 19:46
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Not much of a transition needed. Compare with the word cards, it does not become cars.

If your native language does not have that 'ds' sound/transition, I can understand that it might be hard for you to pronounce it. In that case you can get away with frɛnz just make sure you get that z-sound. You could maybe get away with frɛntz if you say it fast but that might sound a bit Germanish.

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The ds at the end becomes a z sounds, like zoo

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    I disagree - I am quite particular about pronoindcing the 'd' in 'dz' - no need to drop it, in practice (for the listener, SotneyB is probably correct that few people would notice, however, an analogy on this is that no-one will notice the bassline in a song. Most people won't, but to the trained ear, it is quite prominent. I therefore don't advocate teaching "lazy English" to people who are learning English as a second language.
    – martin
    Nov 1, 2015 at 19:40
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    So, you want the d? It's inaudible, unless you can prove otherwise, there's nothing lazy about it.
    – jgritty
    Nov 1, 2015 at 19:44
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    I can hear a difference between /frɛnds/ and /frɛnz/ but /frɛndz/ is the same as the latter. You can't get from the n to z without making a d sound. Think of endzone vs enzyme, the nz vs ndz is about as identical as sounds can get, unless you try to unnaturally stretch end-zone into 2 words. I am pretty particular about pronoindciation as well, but this is pedantic.
    – jgritty
    Nov 1, 2015 at 19:57
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    My tongue is in a completely different place in my mouth when I pronouce friends in comparison to when I probnouce enzyme - perhaps it is because I am British (pedantic, as you say - hence no downvote!) ;)
    – martin
    Nov 1, 2015 at 20:06
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    In InE, we definitely pronounce both together -'dz'.
    – Maulik V
    Nov 2, 2015 at 11:39
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It is pronounced with the affricate [d͡z]. A good way of thinking of it is as the "j" sound /d͡ʒ/ but with your tongue at the location of /d/, either touching the back of your teeth or closely behind them. Also, make sure to only touch the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue.

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In friends, most if not all native English speakers definitely have a /d/ sound. It's just that the /d/ is unreleased ([d̚]), so it's barely perceptible. Unreleased means that the airflow blocked for the /d/ at the alveolar ridge remains there and is not released like a normal /d/. So you hear frenz.

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This is very accent specific and there's no real "wrong" way within the following

  • z - the D is softened to the point that the ds becomes a Z sound
  • Dz - the D is slightly softened, but the D is still pronounced. The S becomes a Z sound
  • Dss/tss - the S becomes almost a hiss, with the D remaining fairly sharp and the D almost resembling a T
  • ss - as above, the s becomes a hiss but the D is softened or almost entirely dropped

My own accent (one of the many North-Western English accents) mostly uses the latter two

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  • There IS a right way and a wrong way. If you learn the right way and know you are being lazy when you leave the d out then, if someone doesn't understand, you have the option to say it properly so that it is clearer.
    – JamesRyan
    Nov 3, 2015 at 15:37
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    No. There is no official way to pronounce any English word. English is an evolved language. You're English, you know as well as I do that no two towns in the UK pronounce a word exactly the same way... If English is pronounced well enough to be understood, it's English.
    – Jon Story
    Nov 3, 2015 at 16:38
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    A telephone voice doesn't have less of an accent, it has more of one: received pronunciation is an accent. Dropped letters are accent, not laziness.
    – Jon Story
    Nov 3, 2015 at 17:10
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    An accent is not laziness, you have a very strange view of language and linguistics if you believe that. Language evolves over time, accents are one facet of that
    – Jon Story
    Nov 3, 2015 at 17:49
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    @JamesRyan: The trouble with your assertion that "an accent is laziness" is that it presupposes that there must exist some form of speech which is accent-free. The problem is that no one can agree on which set of pronunciations is correct. I'm an American, and I speak with a General American accent (which most Americans would consider accent-free). Yet you would undoubtedly consider me to have an accent. And vice versa. Unless all regions of the English-speaking world can agree on a single accent (which will never happen), it is impossible to speak without an accent.
    – Scott Severance
    Jul 8, 2016 at 4:22

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