A series of experiments examined listeners’ ability to detect mispronounced words in a short story. Mispronunciations were produced by changing a single consonant segment in a word to produce a (phonologically permissible) nonsense word. The results of six different experiments showed that prestressed word‐initial stop consonants are more perceptible than other consonants. For example, mispronunciations produced by changing the voicing of a word‐initial stop (e.g., ’’boy’’ to ’’poy’’) were detected about 70% of the time, while changes in voicing of a word‐initial fricative (e.g., ’’voice’’ to ’’foice’’) were detected about 38% of the time. Mispronunciations produced by changing the place of articulation of a prestressed word‐initial stop were most detectable of all (80% to 90% detection) for three different speakers. A change in place of articulation of a word‐initial stop (e.g., ’’baby’’ to ’’daby’’) was detected as often as a change in both place of articulation and voicing (e.g., ’’baby to ’’taby’’). Finally, it was found that a mispronunciation was detected about twice as often in word‐initial than in word‐final position in one syllable words for both stops and nasals. The results suggest that listeners pay special attention to word‐initial stop consonants in natural continuous speech.