North American English Pronunciation - The American flap /t/ as little

The /t/ sound in American English often changes to something else. The only case, in fact, where it doesn't change to something else is when there is stress on the vowel after the /t/. In that case, the /t/ is just a /t/ sound. So, the flap indicates something about the stress in the word. I forgot to mention that even if you say the stress correctly, Americans or Canadians might think you said it wrong, just because you said a /t/ sound and not a flap!