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As a native British English speaker I often notice what seems to be an omission of the "t" sound by American speakers when the letter follows an "n".
Examples:
Interview ---> Innerview
Internet ---> Innernet
Questions
Do U.S. speakers hear it the same way as I do or am I missing a very subtle sound?
Does this pronunciation vary a lot across the States?
Is there an obvious explanation?
The sound is actually realised as an alveolar flap [ɾ] rather than not pronounced at all, so Americans would consider the sounds produced by the words inner [ˈɪnəɹ̠] and "inter" from the word internet [ˈɪɾ̃əɹ̠ˌnɛt] to be two different ones. You can see the same process in words without the "nt" letters: butter [ˈbʌɾəɹ̠], party [ˈpɑɹ̠ɾi], loader [ˈloʊɾəɹ̠], etc.
The phenomenon is called flapping, and there is a Wikipedia article that thoroughly addresses this topic. Apart from the feature being prevalent in southern American accents, it's usually a choice among other Americans regardless of location from what I've experienced.
As an American I can tell you that in some cases the t isn't pronounced. one case is that it's simply a slang way of saying those words. another case is that it can happen when a person is speaking more quickly. Speaking quickly can make words roll off the tongue more smoothly. t is not a very smooth sound, so it gets smoothed out. This can happen anywhere in the United States.
