Academic English Skills with Dr. Byrnes

  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...

The /θ/ and /ð/ sounds are produced by the ‘TH’ spelling. /θ/ is voiceless, and /ð/ is voiced. To pronounce the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds, the tongue should be in between the teeth, thus these sounds are called the interdentals. The sound is made by lightly blowing out against teeth and the tongue, thus being fricatives. The back of your tongue is kept low and flat.  /θ/, /ð/ words These are words with voiceless ‘TH’, /θ/ :  think, thin, thing, thanks, thirty, Thursday, three, thumb, third, thirteen, bathtub, toothpick, birthday, healthy, something, anything, athlete, math, tooth, teeth, tenth, ninth, breath, earth, mouth, south, north These are words with voiced ‘TH’, /ð/ :   then, than, those, worthy, mother, father, farther, northern, nevertheless, feather, weather, brother, clothing, clothes, either, another, neither, bathe, breathe, clothe, smooth These are sentences with /θ/ and /ð/: They think the athlete's birthday is this Thursday. The brother will be thirteen this Th...

Fricatives Fricatives are sounds that are made by friction. It is like air escaping from a tiny hole in a balloon. For fricative consonants, some parts of the vocal tract, like the tongue, lips, teeth, or the roof of the mouth, come very close to each other, making a very small narrow opening for the air to escape. Air hisses through the small in-between space. So the final sound is a friction-like hissing sound. The air stream is never completely blocked, so the sound can continue. There are 9 fricatives, which are /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ᴣ/, and /h/. These are pairs of fricatives that are the same in manner and place, but are different in voicing: /f/ and /v/, /θ/ and /ð/, /s/ and /z/, /∫/ and /ᴣ/. /h/ has no voiced counterpart. Regarding their place of production, /f/ and /v/ are called labiodental, /θ/ and /ð/ are called interdental, /s/ and /z/ are called aleovelar, /∫/ and /ᴣ/ are called palatal, and /h/ is called glottal. We examine each pair, in turn. Labiodental fr...