How to pronounce the 't' in 'Saiten'?

Question

Do I make a clear 't' sound with my tongue or a sort of vague 't' sound with the back of my throat? On forvo the gentleman clearly pronounces the 't' so it sounds like 'Sai-ten' but on other websites I am not hearing properly the 't' sound, it is more like 'Sai(t)-en'. Thanks

Answer 1

The pronunciation of Saite is

[ˈzaɪ̯tə] (IPA)

link

with a clear t-sound like in "ten".

Edit, because Uwe made a good point

Looking at the plural form "Saiten" it's getting interesting. Wiktionary says it's pronounced

[ˈzaɪ̯tn̩]

while the homophone "Seiten" can be pronounced

[ˈzaɪ̯tən] or [ˈzaɪ̯tn̩] as well

with the first one pronounced like the example at forvo with a hard t-sound and the second one with a less clear t-sound and an omitted ə, which may be the reason for your question. Take a look at these examples for different pronounciations of "Seiten".

So ... how does one pronounce Saiten? From my point of view it's possible to use both versions as well: [ˈzaɪ̯tən] and [ˈzaɪ̯tn̩], even if Wiktionary says it's just the second one.

Or as you say with a

clear 't' sound with my tongue [or] a sort of vague 't' sound with the back of my throat

Answer 2

In German, the t-glottalization you often hear in varieties of British English is rare, where a word such as “Britain” would be pronounced as [ˈbɹɪʔn̩]. Instead, a nasal release is more common, so «Saiten» would be pronounced as [ˈz̥aɪtⁿn̩]. Glottalization and nasals release are quite similar, though, insofar as the stop is not released at its proper place, which would be the tip of the tongue in the case of a [t].

That being said, it is quite common in many regions of Germany that a /t/ after a diphthong or long vowel is lenited to a [d̥], so «Saite» (and «Seite») would be pronounced like «Seide». However, many people would be unaware of this or even deny it outright because the influence of the spelling makes them believe that the pronunciation is different even though it is really not. Also, you can expect that people make an effort to distinguish these words when asked to pronounce them in isolation even though they would pronounce them exactly the same in their normal speech.