Consonants (19/01)

 Labiodental:

• /f/ and /v/: touch your top teeth with your bottom lip. Blow out air between your lip and your teeth.
• /f/ most of the students do not have difficulty with /f/. it may appear in initial, medial and final position.

Spelling /f/:

• -f: fine [fain], few, off (not of)
• Off: offer
• Ph: physics, phonetics
• Gh: laugh (just for this word)

Spelling /v/:

• We do not have this sound in Spanish because we usually replace it with /b/.
• It is helpful the contrast of the sound in in
• The sound /v/ is usually written with the letter “v”.
• Visitors, heavy, seven, eleven, seventeen, seventy.

Other spellings:

• Ve: give, have, five, twelve.
• F: of but “a bowl of fruit”

Fricatives: dental

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	θ	Thought	[θɔ:t]	Dental
Voiced	ð	They	[ðei]

• /ð/: there is no similar independent sound in Spanish, although we can find a similar phoneme between vowels, e.g. lado , dedo, etc.
• We should try to discriminate between /d/ and / ð/: the day, they did that, etc.
• To produce this sound, put the tip of your tongue between your teeth, touching your top teeth. Blow out air between your top teeth and your tongue and use your voice.
• The sound / ð/ is always written with the letter “th”: with, mother, brother, father, feather, that, etc.
• If the letter “th” are at the end of a word, the corresponding sound is voiceless: bath
• “with” as it is a very frecuently used word it is pronounced [wi ð]
• It may appear in:

                 - Initial: then, this, that

                 - Medial: brother, other

                 - Final position: with, bathe

• It is very similar to the Spanish sound represented by “z” or “ce”, “ci”.
• To produce this sound sollow the same procedure as in / ð/ but do not use your voice.
• This sound is always written with the letter “th”.
• Mouth, month, thirsty, three, north, south, through, throw, think. 

Alveolar

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	S	Say	[sei]	Alveolar
Voiced	Z	Zoo	[zu:]

/s/

• We can found a similar sound in Spanish and although most students can produce it they tend to say [espu:n] instead of [spu:n].

Spellings:

• The sound /s/ is usually written with the letter “s”.
• S: class, lesson, student.
• C: bicycle, exercise.
• Se: house, horse.
• Ce: policeman, face
• X: pronounced /ks/: six, box, exercise.
• But “example”: [igza:mple]

/z/

• There is no similar independent sound in Spanish, although when “s” precedes a voiced consonant (e.g. mismo, rasgo), we can see it is very similar although with some differences.
• Remember to use your voice to produce this sound.
• We may find this sound in English in

                 - Initial: zip, zoo, zebra

                 - Media: busy, crazy

                 - Final: lose, loose, wise, days.

• Note: both /z/ and /s/ are very important in English because they can represent the plural morphemes, the Saxon genitive and the third person singular present tense. 

Palatoalveolar

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	ʃ	Ship	[ʃip]	Palato-alveolar
Voiced	ʒ	Measure	[məʒə]

/ʃ/

• /ʃ/ it doesn’t exist in Spanish.
• In some parts of Andalucía and Extremadura it is used instead of “ch”, for example, “muchacho”.
• Pronounce first /s/ then put your tongue up and back a little to make /ʃ/.
• It may appear in:

                 - Initial position: ship, shut, shave.

                 - Medial: fishes, fashion [fӕʃn], dishes [di ʃiz]

                 - Final position: wash, crash, rush.

• This sound is usually written with the letters “sh”: ship, shop, finish.
• Other spellings: Russia, sugar, Scottish, Irish, polish, French, Turkish, Spanish.

/ʒ/

• There is no similar sound in Spanish.
• To produce it follow the same steps as for /s/ and use your voice because it is a voiced sound.
• This sound is not found in initial position (except for some French words).
• It is found in:

                 - Medial position: leisure, treasure

                 - Final position: garage has 3 transcriptions.

Spellings:

• The sound /ʒ/ is usually written with the letters “s” or “ge”.
• Usual, pleasure, television.
• /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are very productive in the pronunciations of the endings in –tion and –sion:
• /ʃən/: nation, reduction, creation, motion.
• /ʒən/: vision, explosion, decision, exclusion.

Affricatives

/tʃ/ /ʤ/

• Sound consisting of a stop consonant followed by a fricative.
• They are also called affricative.
• They have got two elements, the first one is plosive and the second one is fricative. 

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	/tʃ/	Church	[ʧɜːʧ]	Affrcatives
Voiced	/ʤ/	George	[ʤɔːʤ]

Sound production:

• Begin pronouncing as if it was a plosive, then relax your mouth and when you gradually open your mouth there is a friction.
• There is a similar sound in Spanish, usually written with the letter “ch”.
• Examples: cheap, child, match, chalk.

Other spellings:

• Tch: watch, butcher.
• Ture: picture.
• T: question.
• Tune: fortune.
• Other important words: cherry, lunch, chocolate, children, chicken.

/ʤ/

• There is no similar independent sound in Spanish.
• We can speak when we pronounce “y” emphatically (e.g. yo, ya).
• Once you have understood and pronounced /tʃ/ use your voice to make /ʤ/.

Spellings:

This sound is usually written with the letters:

• J: joke, jam.
• g/e: german, gentleman, vegetables, oranges, cabbage.
• Dj: adjust
• Di: soldier.