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I could be wrong about this, but the D sound in British English (RP) sounds a little different from the American counterpart. Often when I hear the words "Lady", "Ready", "Hidden", or "I do", it has a tendency to sound very strong and breathy compared to how I would say it with an American accent. To me, it sounds similar to how a J would sound, but not exactly. I am aware that this definitely does not happen for all D-words, but I hear it often enough that it piqued my interest.

Was wondering if this is an actual phenomenon or if I am just hearing things. I heard that there are many variations in RP English, and that location and class can even affect it. Perhaps this way of pronouncing the D is specific to a certain variation?

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    Geoff Lindsey in his book mentions that /d/ is commonly realized as affricated [dz], perhaps that's what you're hearing?
    – LinguisticsFanatic
    Commented Sep 10, 2022 at 22:41

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American English speakers tend to reduce /d/ to a flapped [ɾ] between vowels, while British English speakers generally don't. This means an RP /d/ can sound a lot "stronger" than an American one, since it's realized as a full stop [d] instead of merely a flap [ɾ].

This is commonly called D-flapping.

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  • I believe the OP is asking about affrication instead, given how they describe it as "similar to how a J would sound, but not exactly".
    – jogloran
    Commented Sep 12, 2022 at 4:09
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In the examples you cite, there is no [d] in most dialects of American English, it is replaced with the flap [ɾ]. Thus "writer" and "rider" are phonetically identical, though given "write; ride" we know that underlyingly the former has /t/ and the latter has /d/. The flapping rule is not a feature of RP. Another difference is that /t/ and /d/ lenite to something like [ts, dz] in British English. This is apparently an "emerging" variant in RP.

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    "Dz" is actually the perfect way to describe the sound that I am hearing. It's that Z-like air mixed in that makes it sound hissier than a normal D. I initially thought that it might be due to the flap in American English, but then decided that this wasn't the difference that I am hearing cuz I would hear the Dz in the beginning of some words while it sounded normal in other words. Overall, it does seem like an "emerging" thing since it's not consistent.
    – iloveturtles
    Commented Sep 10, 2022 at 23:14
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    For me "writer" and "rider" aren't quite identical, because vowels are lengthened before voiced consonants so "rider" has a longer diphthong. The consonants are the same, though.
    – Draconis ♦
    Commented Sep 11, 2022 at 0:04
  • @Draconis Incidentally, I hate the word "writer" in audiobooks because, as a Canadian, Americans always sound like they're talking about "riders". (For us the /t/ would raise the /aj/ whereas the /d/ would not; therefore hearing an unraised /aj/ tells my brain that it's hearing /d/ !)
    – Luke Sawczak
    Commented Sep 11, 2022 at 12:58
  • @Draconis can confirm in a Philadelphia accent, writer and rider are distinguished only by their vowels.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Sep 11, 2022 at 14:22
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    @Draconis I addressed why in North America writer has a higher and shorter vowel [ʌɪ] and rider a lower and longer vowel [aɪ] on ELU in this answer. To further quote Wikipedia on the so-called Canadian raising effect: “Hence, while in accents without raising, writer and rider are pronounced identically except for a slight difference in vowel length due to pre-fortis clipping, in accents with raising, the words may be distinguished by their vowels: writer [ˈɹʌɪɾɚ], rider [ˈɹaɪɾɚ].”
    – tchrist
    Commented Sep 12, 2022 at 13:33

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