I agree about 'Tuesday' in BrE. In careful speech, the first syllable of 'Tuesday' is /tju:/, but the combination of 't' and 'y' in relaxed speech tends to produce the 'ch' sound that we commonly hear in 'future' and so on. This is what generally happens with BrE speakers. So, unless I'm being very, very careful indeed, I do say 'Chewsday'. Also 'chewn' for 'tune', 'chewb' for 'tube', and so on. I'm sure that John does too. Shame on us.

This doesn't tend to happen in AmE, where the first syllable of 'Tuesday' is more likely to be pronounced /tu:/.

Gray says "in fact I don't think English has any words with the consonant cluster "chr" at all". True. Unless, of course, we include "Chim chiminy, chim chiminy, chim chim ch-ree" (as sung in the worst attempt at a Cockney accent in the whole of cinematic history).

@Su.Ki. - I'll join you in waiting for the experts to pronounce a verdict on this one. :) I confess, I don't much <em>like</em> the idea of "tree" being pronounced as "chree." But when I actually try saying "tree"/"chree" or "train"/"chrain," both pronunciations sound equally correct and native to me. It may be just a transitional "sh" that I'm hearing, though, as you say, between "t" and "r."

As far as I know, there are no minimal pairs, anyway -- in fact I don't think English has any words with the consonant cluster "chr" at all (except words with Greek roots, which are pronounced as "kr").

@ ᑎᗩDᗩ’s eager4 winter - Personally, I pronounce "Tuesday" with a /t/ sound. But I've heard some speakers who do use a soft "ch" sound when they say this word. I assume that this "ch" pronunciation is the pun behind the title of Neil Gaiman's children's book "Chu's Day." (Edit: I just saw your last comment, Benny. If it's the British pronunciation, that makes sense, since Gaiman is British.)

Oh dear. I don't like it when people are chroubled, chraumatised or frushtrated.

Yes, I can hear the lovely David Attenborough do a fleeting 'ch' in the transition between the 't' and 'r'. It's probably inevitable. As the tongue slides along the alveolar ridge, moving back from the dental 't' towards the 'r', you're likely to get a momentary transitional 'sh' sibilant, which will sound like a 'ch' when combined with the preceding 't'.

But I don't think that that is the same as 'tree' becomes 'chree', is it? I think it would be very misleading if we were to tell our students to aim for 'chrain' rather than 'train', for example.

Still waiting for Phil, Chris or another expert to enlighten us.

The pronunciation videos by Rachel's English are generally good, as are the videos by Clear English Corner with Keenyn Rhodes. Here is the video on TR sounding like CHR by Clear English Corner.

By experimentation, I found that my usual apical [r] doesn't lead to the /tr/ => [tʃr] realization, but a domal [r] (also called a bunched [r]) leads to [tʃr]. This matches my observations of Rachel and Keenyn using domal [r]s during their videos.

In Québécois French, the /t/ is usually realized as [tʃ] with "tu" ([ty] in France) soundling like "chu" [tʃy]. Given Su.Ki.'s comment about the British pronunciation of /tju:/ (Tuesday "Chusday"), it's likely that the David Attenborough's pronuncation of /tr/ as [tʃr] is jusr a variation of Tuesday/Chusday effect.

@Benny

As you like to dig deeply, here is a short academic thesis analyzing an American student's speech and demonstating all the American /t/ allophones including [tʃ] as in the word < fortune >.

<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e752/edad0d6d39ca6e5adcf0ff3c03ea61d20d52.pdf" target="_blank">https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e752/edad0d6d39ca6e5adcf0ff3c03ea61d20d52.pdf</a>;

Now I am chroubled. I hope I am not having chransient problems with my hearing :)