Yeah, @konekush, please explain! My understanding of linguistic terms is very basic, so explain it to me like I’m stupid please 
AFAIK, both はやぐち and はやくち are correct readings? Though I do like this conflicting info from the WK item page:
Rendaku Information
早口 (はやくち) unexpectedly does not rendaku. You might think it should rendaku because 口(くち) is kunyomi, and none of the exceptional circumstances which stop kunyomi readings from rendaku’ing apply.
早口 (はやぐち) does rendaku because 口(くち) is kunyomi, and none of the exceptional circumstances which stop kunyomi readings from rendaku’ing apply.
Umm, so which is it? 
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Hard for me to believe at level eight, but I hope you’re right 
Huh. Now that you say that…
Unrelated side point: your profile pic makes me extremely happy.
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A glottal stop is a specific consonant, the same way [s] is a consonant. In songs, sometimes the gemination is rendered into a glottal stop, but I haven’t encountered it yet in speech.
Japanese, like English, doesn’t really haven’t a glottal stop. It shows up sometimes, often in the same places it does in English, but sometimes at the end of utterances and then it’s written as っ without any other kana after it.
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Lol uhhhhh… wut
A glottal stop is a stop (completely halted airflow) in the glottis (right at the back of the throat). It’s the sound between the syllables in “uh-oh.” っ, on the other hand, changes its pronunciation to match the following consonant, which is why it’s romanized as a doubling of the consonant. For instance, in 「にっぽん」, the stop occurs at the lips. I think っ is better described as a lengthening of the following consonant.
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Bless your face, that’s the best layman’s explanation I’ve yet seen for the glottal stop.
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Why, thank you. 
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The problem I think is people confuse the slight halt that happens when you pronounce a double consonant with a glottal stop. Whereas something like ‘ああっ！’ has a real glottal stop.
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Thanks!! That actually makes it a lot more clear to me.
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I just know I was corrected by my italki partner when I said はやぐち, but that could just be what sounded right to her I guess.
I think in general, when it comes to languages, a lot of things that you don’t actively study will come on their own while you focus on the things you do study, especially if you make sure to get some regular exposure when you’re ready for that.
I think it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking you must actively study and memorize everything, when in practice language is as much feeling as knowledge, and feeling just comes from exposure, and can get you very far.
I would also say that languages are one place where a little “fake it 'til you make it” attitude will actually get you pretty far if that makes sense to you. Like, it’s OK (necessary even!) to speak even when your Japanese isn’t all that good. It’s OK to watch a movie or read a book even if you just get the gist of it etc.
Happy to oblige! 
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I’ve noticed that ‘small tsu’ is much more likely to happen before a ‘s’ sound than a ‘z’ sound, thought not a hard rule.
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It’s definitely a valid reading as 千早口駅 has a reading as ちはやぐちえき. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the reading is correct in all situations. As a standalone word, it seems that はやくち seems more correct. So that’s likely why you were corrected.
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Yeah, a voiced consonant will almost never have a small tsu coming before it.
Edit: it’s why ベッド often sounds like ベット.
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Um, yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought until a couple posts ago. 
Scribbles frantically to record all this new knowledge
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I did, too, because that’s what I read early on in my studies from what I find now was not the best of sources. Luckily I found another source which helped to correct that in my head.
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little tsu
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I know that you’re right, but it doesn’t feel like you’re right. Also, I’m a huge nerd about language and WANT to learn all these details not so much for use as… they’re all just so fascinating!!
This is 100% true. I spent a few years learning another language, and as much studying as I did, I learned the fastest and the most from just trying to use it. Fortunately with that language, there was a native speaker I felt super comfortable with, so I didn’t mind making a complete fool of myself with her. 
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as @seanblue said, the more you learn vocab, the more rendakus become obvious. Often you will be able to guess that there is a rendaku before being given the actual reading. Every time there is a rendaku, you’ll notice it’s because the reading flow is awkward.
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Ohhhh ok, I understand now. 
Thanks for helping me start to grasp this stuff!