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I feel like /tər/ (/ˈdɑːktər/ doctor or /ˈsɪstər/ sister) in American Accent sound like /trə/.

I couldn't find this info on the internet.

It seems that when we curl up the blade of the tongue too soon & that is why they sound like /ˈdɑːktrə/ doctor or /ˈsɪstrə/ sister.

Why does /tər/ (/ˈdɑːktər/ doctor or /ˈsɪstər/ sister) in American Accent sound like /trə/?

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It doesn't. If it did, spectre (pronounced /ˈspɛk.təɹ/ and spectra (pronounced /ˈspɛk.tɹə/) would be exact homophones, and they aren't, although they do sound similar.

Similarly, we don't think Dexter and extra are perfect rhymes, although you could get around this in a humorous poem by pronouncing extra as exter.

Maybe some aspect of your native language makes them sound the same to you.

We usually don't actually say /ˈspɛktər/. We usually use either a syllabic /r/ (/ɹ̩/ in IPA) or a r-colored schwa (/ɚ/ in IPA) for /ər/, so either way it's only one phone and not two. But spectra is indeed /ɹə/, and I don't usually have any trouble telling these two sounds apart.

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  • Maybe your accent is different, listen to this dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sister
    – Tom
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 13:36
  • Maybe your accent sounds like this oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/…
    – Tom
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 13:42
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    In neither of these is the schwa pronounced after the /r/. The first one sounds to me like /ˈsɪstɚ/, where the /r/ and the /ə/ are combined into one sound (this is what I'm used to hearing), while the second sounds like /ˈsɪstər/ where the /ə/ is pronounced before the /r/. Try listening to extra to hear the difference between /-tər/ and /-trə/.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 16:16
  • I think what's happening is that you are expecting Americans to pronounce the /ə/ first and the /r/ second, and that's why you don't think sister sounds like /ˈsɪstər/. We don't usually do that; we combine the /ə/ and the /r/ into one sound, often represented in IPA as /ˈsɪstɚ/.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 19:20
  • Why do dictionaries represent sister as /ˈsɪstər/ rather than /ˈsɪstɚ/, when that's the way most Americans pronounce it? I don't know.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 19:26

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