What is the way a word or language sounds when spoken?

The way a word or language sounds when spoken is called its phonetics.

Here's a breakdown:

* Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech. It involves how sounds are produced, their acoustic properties, and how they are perceived.

* Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in a language. It deals with the rules governing how sounds can be combined and how they change in different contexts.

So, while phonetics describes the physical aspects of sound production and perception, phonology examines the way sounds are used in a language system.

For example, the word "cat" has three sounds: /k/, /æ/, and /t/. This is the phonetic description. But the phonology of English tells us that these sounds can only be combined in certain ways, such as "cat" but not "cta".

In simpler terms:

* Phonetics is about the what of sounds.

* Phonology is about the how of sounds.