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I've noticed that some Americans pronounce dr as jr , such as:

  • draft → jraft
  • Andrew → Anjrew

Is this standard pronunciation?

Decapitated Soul
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gene b.
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  • As Kosmo writes in the duplicate: “These variants don't come from Yiddish, German, or any other language. It is simply a natural phonological process that occurs in many languages, often due to co-articulatory factors.” It also happens in words like tree in the unvoiced version. These are not different phonemes, merely natural allophones, and untrained native speakers are completely oblivious as to whether they do it or not (Kosmo is not untrained :). As a non-native speaker, you have to learn to hear the abstract mental phoneme, not the myriad allophones that don't matter. – tchrist May 27 '21 at 22:08
  • Related: What is the IPA for "trade" – Decapitated Soul May 27 '21 at 22:08
  • All I can say is that you have noticed wrong. It's simply not believable that any AmE speaker would say jraft for draft. – Lambie May 27 '21 at 22:29
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    @Lambie Drafts and giraffes are impossible to distinguish in many Southern dialects. Dreary is commonly pronounced jreary. – Phil Sweet May 27 '21 at 22:51
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    @Lambie it's entirely believable. I once had a conversation stop in its tracks because my Greek conversation partner insisted that I stop saying "chrain" when referring to intercity rail transportation. Or chransportation. – phoog May 28 '21 at 05:26
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    @Lambie I can't believe that you have never heard this from any American. How do Americans you hear pronounce "Trump"? A couple of instances I found in a quick YouTube search: In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRmnaszQRGg Joe Biden says 1:09 "transportation". In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61yTbx8IsCo Pete Buttigieg says 0:07 "entrusting" 0:23 "transportation". – Rosie F May 28 '21 at 05:42
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    Can someone reopen the thread? It was stupid to close it. – gene b. May 28 '21 at 13:22
  • It's probably dumb to close this without first explaining how it relates to the other thread. – GArthurBrown May 28 '21 at 15:48
  • I would have said they were pronounced / ˈdɒk tər / and / ˈdʒun yər / – Jim May 28 '21 at 18:49
  • @phoog Remember when Dick Cheney joined the board of directors for a RR. It took about five seconds for people to start calling him Choo Choo Cheney – Phil Sweet May 28 '21 at 23:05

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