Aspiration (phonetics)

Aspiration is like when you blow air out very hard after you say a letter like "p" or "t". Imagine you have a birthday cake with lots of candles on it. You blow really hard to blow out all the candles, right? Now, when you say the sound "p" or "t", you blow out some air too, but not as much as blowing out the candles. We call this blowing out of air "aspiration". So when you say "p" or "t", you aspirate the sound by letting out a little bit of air. It's like a tiny little puff of air. This can change the way the word sounds, so it's really important to get it right if you're learning a new language or working on your accent!