English Consonant Pronunciation

Let’s look closer at these sounds you already know from English, then we can address the sounds you don’t.

You’ll see in the chart on the right, what each symbols sounds like given the example word. Some symbols are self explanatory since they are similar to the English letter and sound. Note that when we write using symbols from the IPA chart, we encompass the letter in either [ ] , //, or < >. So, for example:

[m] as in mouse
[t] as in tape
[d] as in dog

Some other symbols you are not as likely to recognize given they don’t directly resemble the letters of the English alphabet:

[ŋ] the nasal ‘n’ sound as in ‘strong’ or ‘length’
[θ] the tongue between your teeth sound as in ‘bath’ or ‘thin’
[ð] the counterpart of [θ] as in ‘than’ or ‘other’ (see more below on ‘voiced vs voiceless’)
[ʃ] the ‘sh’ sound as in ‘sheep’ or ‘cash’
[ʒ] the ‘z’ sound as is ‘pleasure’ or ‘collage’
[j] contrary to appearances, it is more of a ‘y’ than a ‘j’ sound, as in ‘you’ or ‘view’

A note about the Other Symbols section; these are simply additional consonant sounds that would have been in the chart, but for the extra space they would have required to be placed in separate columns.

A note about ‘r’ sound.  In the IPA, the English r sound is represented by the symbol [ɹ]. However, you may see it noted as [r] for ease of typesetting. But as you’ll see below, in phonetic transcription, the [r] represents the trill you find in Spanish.

Other Consonant Pronunciation

There are a number of symbols that were not highlighted in green, since they are not found in the spoken English language, but in other languages.

Learning which of these sounds exist in your target language (but don’t exist in your native language) helps you identify common pitfalls and pronunciation errors. Also it means you’ll likely have to work a little harder with these sounds since they are much more foreign to you. We highlight some of these in Spanish in our post on the 4 essential keys to Spanish pronunciation.

Here are some examples of consonant sounds not found in English:

The french r as is ‘rouge‘: [ʁ] (audio)
The Spanish j as in ‘jardin‘: [x] (audio)
The Spanish r as in ‘perro’: [r] (audio)
The German w as in ‘was‘: [ʋ] (audio)

Multi-symbol sounds

There are a few common sounds which combine 2 consonant sounds. These are known as affricates or co-articulated consonants. The sounds are in fact created by simultaneously combining two sounds, but are often though of as a unique sound.

In English we find two main samples.  The first is the ‘j’ sound in jump, written  [dʒ], this being a combination of the [d] as in dog and the [ʒ] as in beige. The second is the ‘ch’ sound as in cheat, written as [tʃ] . This is a combination of the[t] as in toe and the [ʃ] as in sheep.

Voiced vs voiceless

There are some sounds that have voiced and voiceless counter parts. This is interesting because they are sounds that are produced with the exact same positioning of the mouth and tongue, but there is a difference is how you move sound through your mouth, or specifically, whether or not your larynx vibrates when you make the sound.

You can see this in the example of the words ‘think‘ and ‘then‘. The ‘th‘ in think is represented as [θ]. The ‘th‘ in then is represented by [ð].  If you say them each out loud to yourself, you’ll notice how in the beginning of the word ‘think’, you don’t engage your vocal chords, but you feel their vibration at the beginning of the pronunciation of ‘then’.

Interpreting the Layout

You may not have thought much about how you configure your mouth when you speak, because it’s so natural to you. But with every syllible we are manuvering specific parts of our mouth, throat, and tongue to make the sounds of our language.

The IPA chart was designed to indicates how each sound is created, by specifying where in the mouth it is produced and in what manner it is produced. This can be really important if you are struggling to pronounce a word in another language correctly.

The intersection between the two types gives you the location and manner which the sound is made. So, a fricative labiodental is created with your bottom lip and top teeth (labiodental) being pressed together (fricative) to give you, for example, ‘f‘as in father (or a v as in voice, if it’s voiceless).

Similarly, the voiceless ‘p‘ sound as in ‘put‘ is found in the intersection of plosive- bilabial.  Plosive sounds (or sometimes referred to as stop sounds) are consonant sounds formed by completely stopping airflow. And not surprisingly, bilabial means using both lips.

We won’t go through all the detail here, but suffice it to say that as you move along the top axis, from left to right, the sound is produced further back in your mouth, starting at bilabial and ending at glottal.