Thumbs up to Sara for the most accurate and useful answer. Additional information: In American English (including Canadian, and for that matter SW England and even some Australians), T in between an (preceding) accented and a (following) reduced vowel in is usually pronounced almost like the single R in Spanish. The American R sounds different from the Rs in Spanish, so no on speaker will ever confuse “vital” and “viral”, any more than a Spanish speaker would confuse “caro” and “carro”.

In AmE pronunciation, the 't' in 'vital' is pronounced with what we know as a 'flap t', which sounds pretty much like an 'r'. In BrE, however, the 't' in 'vital' would just be pronounced with a regular 't', which of course makes it totally different to the word 'viral', with a regular 'r'. P.S. I'm talking about the general, 'standard' form of both varieties of English.

Hello, Thomas. That's a great song! I like the killers. To answer your question, the words are pronounced differently. "Vital" is pronounced with a "t" that almost sounds like a "d" /ˈvīdl/. "Viral" is pronounced with an "r" sound, /ˈvīrəl/. I could see how you could confuse the two because Brandon Flowers doesn't clearly enunciate the word while he's singing. Hopefully, this explanation helps.

Pronunciation of Viral https://www.dictionary.com/browse/viral (click on the speaker icon) Pronunciation of Vital https://www.dictionary.com/browse/vital?s=t I am studying Spanish, so I understand the confusion. You're single-rolling the "r", which can make it sound kind of like a "d." And most of the time, English speakers will not clearly pronounce the "t" in the middle of words--it will sound more like a "d". The key to making these words sound different is to work on your pronunciation of the English "r." I hope that makes sense! I don't envy you learning English pronunciation, lol! (Though the trade-off for phonetic pronunciation in Spanish is that I have to learn all of your crazy verbs!)

No, they don't. t and r are different, .. unless you're doing a kind of 'rolled r'.. They would sound the same to some people, that's true. :)