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The Sounds of English
You can learn the sounds of English quickly by using an 'Interactive Phonemic Chart' made by Adrian Underhill. Clickhere to visit Adrian's chart.
Consonants
Consonants are made by using different parts of the mouth (e.g. lips, teeth, tongue). For example, the word 'bilabial' means using both lips. 'Labiodental' sounds use a lip and teeth.
Different parts of the tongue can touch different parts of the roof of the mouth, or 'palate'. For example, the 'tip' of the tongue can touch the 'alveolar ridge' (see diagram). This is an 'alveolar' sound.
You can learn more about how to make consonants by watching a BBC video about the sound.Click on a symbol to link to a youtube video
| bilabial | labio-dental | dental | alveolar | post-alveolar | palatal | velar | glottal | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stops | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||||||||||
| affricates | ʧ | ʤ | ||||||||||||||
| nasals | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||||
| fricatives | f | v | θ | ð | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | h | |||||||
| approximants | ɹ | j | ||||||||||||||
| lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||||
| labio-velar approximant | w | |||||||||||||||
Note: The international phonetic symbol for the English 'r' is /ɹ/ but many textbooks and dictionaries use the symbol /r/.
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© Barbara Howarth 2011
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