-ED sounds like D
(Past Tense Verbs & Adjectives)

Reading & Pronunciation

With regular verbs, -ED is used to form the past tense. It's also used to create the past participle (V3) which also gets used as an adjective.

A lot of students mistakenly think that this -ED ending adds an extra syllable. However, -ED actually only adds an extra syllable in a few cases. The majority of time, it creates a sound that gets blended into the consonant which comes before it. 

Voiced Consonants

Voiced consonants are the ones where your vocal chords vibrate while making the sound:

b, v, g, z, ʤ (j), ð (voiced th), l, m, n, r

Here, the -ED is pronounced like -D.

The -D blends into the preceding consonant. It doesn’t create a syllable.

Examples: moved, stayed, studied, married, raised, engaged, travelled

Practice these sounds

You can listen to words with this sound on my Memrise course here. Practice saying the sound in isolation. Consider doing this activity to get used to saying it while speaking.

Unvoiced Consonants (-ED sounds like D)

B

cubed

robed

rubbed

grabbed

jabbed

sobbed

tabbed

gabbed

bribed

nabbed

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V

loved

lived

waved

saved

solved

proved

starved

behaved

removed

thrived

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G

bagged

tagged

sagged

intrigued

argued

fatigued

dialogued

winged

hanged

debugged

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Z

dazed

sized

seized

prized

buzzed

fizzed

pleased

used

closed

amused

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ʤ ( j

aged

caged

urged

hinged

immerged

judged

packaged

messaged

massaged

outraged

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ð (voiced TH)

loathed

soothed

smoothed

breathed

clothed

seethed

bathed

teethed

sunbathed

unscathed

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M

named

aimed

timed

gamed

rhymed

warmed

formed

trimmed

combed

climbed

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N

fined

owned

learned

joined

opened

planned

warned

turned

signed

returned

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R

tired

cared

bored

cured

stored

stared

soared

angered

cleaned

coloured

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