032 SH as in Ship and ZH as in Measure
4: The Consonant Sounds: How to Say Them, Drills & Avoiding Faults • 4m 47s
Now let’s look at the unvoiced and voiced pair “SH” and “ZH”. Phonetically, the symbol for “SH” is a sort of elongated “S” and the symbol for “ZH” is a cross between a “Z” and the number 3. These sounds are postalveolar, meaning the tip of your tongue should be just beyond the alveolar ridge, and fricative which means there is a continuous flow of air. Make sure the flow of air is focused straight ahead and doesn’t escape over the sides of your tongue:
SH/ZH SH/ZH SH/ZH
Let’s practice the unvoiced “SH” sound with all the vowels.
Up Next in 4: The Consonant Sounds: How to Say Them, Drills & Avoiding Faults
-
033 CH as in Church and DZH as in Judge
Another pair of voiced and unvoiced sounds is CH and DZH. Phonetically, CH is written as T followed by the symbol for SH. T plus SH gives us CH as in
Church
Match
NatureNotice that this sound isn’t only indicated by a C and H spelling.
DZH is written phonetically as D followed by the sy...
-
034 Voiced TH as in This and Unvoiced...
This is a tricky pair of sounds because although they are always spelled the same way, “T.H.”, they can be pronounced as either voiced: “TH” or unvoiced. As ever, if you are confused, the dictionary will always help you. Phonetically, the voiced “TH”, as in This, symbol is a sort of “o” with a li...
-
035 L as in Luck and R as in Red
This pair of sounds are not linked quite as obviously as the pairs we have studied so far - but the movement of the tongue that is needed to make each sound is very similar. These sounds are “L” and “R”.
To make the “L” sound, the tip of your tongue brushes over the alveolar ridge like this:
...
