Academic English Skills with Dr. Byrnes

  /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ are the only affricates in English. An affricate is a phoneme which combines a plosive (or stop) with an immediately following fricative. In other words, an affricate begins like a stop , but ends like a fricative . So, to create /ʧ/, air is briefly prevented from leaving the vocal tract when the tip of the tongue presses against the back tooth ridge while the sides of the tongue press against the upper side teeth. In this way all air is blocked. Then the tongue pulls back to create friction, creating turbulence. /ʤ/ is voiced and is the counterpart to the unvoiced /ʧ/. So to say /dʒ/, additionally, voice the vocal cord. The voiceless affricate ‘ch’ is pronounced twice in the word ‘church’, and the voiced affricate ‘j’ is pronounced twice in the word ‘judge’. /ʧ/, /ʤ/ minimal pairs chain Jane char jar charred jarred Chas jazz cheer jeer cheese G’s cherry Jerry chess Jess chest jest chested jested Chester jester chew Jew chill Jill chin gin chip gyp chive jive choice J...

/h/ is quite easy to recognize for most non-native speakers. An exception might be French speakers since the letter H is always silent in French. In Britain, using or not using the /h/ sound can signify class and status (posher speakers vs ‘H’ droppers). But in American English, unless ‘H’ is silent, H is always pronounced.  Silent H words The sound /h/ is spelt with an ‘H’ or ‘WH.’ With ‘WH,’ either /w/ or /h/ is pronounced, but not both. When ‘H’ is combined with other letters like TH, SH, CH, PH, GH, and RH, they make entirely different sounds: ‘TH’ makes /θ/ or /ð/; ‘SH’ makes /ʃ/; ‘CH’ makes /tʃ/; ‘PH’ makes /f/ (except for ‘SHEPHERD’ where ‘PH’ makes /p/). ‘GH’ can be either silent or make /f/, /g/ or /p/. H is silent in ‘RH.’  These words have silent ‘H’:  what, which, where, when, why, honor, hour, honest, heir, herb, vehicle, vehement, exhausting, exhilarating  /h/, no-/h/ minimal pairs This is the minimal pairs of /h/ and non-/h/ had add hair air hall all h...

  The 'sh’ sound /ʃ/ is unvoiced, and is the counterpart to the voiced /ʒ/. Both are fricatives. To create /ʃ/ and its voiced counterpart / ʒ /, the sides of the tongue touch the sides of upper teeth. The tip of the tongue does not touch anything. The blade of the tongue is concave. Air is forced between a wide groove in the center of the tongue and the palatal area. The lips are kept slightly tense, and may protrude somewhat during the production of the sounds. To say /ʒ/, additionally, voice the vocal cord. Words with /ʃ/ Many letters can make the /ʃ/ sound: SH, SS, TI, CI, CEA, CH and X. These are words with the /ʃ/ sound.  With "sh":  she, show, wish, push, fashion, publisher, relationship With "ss":  assure, commission, discussion, expression, issue, tissue, mission, pressure, profession  With "ci":  efficient, musician, racial, special, facial With "cea":   ocean With "ch": machine With "ti":  action, education, fu...