Pronouncing English Consonants


bee	cee	dee	ef	gee	(h)aitch	jay	kay



el	em	en	pee	cue	ar	ess	tee



vee	double-u	ex	wy(e)	zed/zee
				/

Consonant Sounds are produced by completely or partially stopping the breath. Consonant Sounds can be voiceless (VL, no vibration of the vocal cords) or voiced (VD, vibration of the vocal cords) and often come in sound pairs.

The symbols used for consonants are shown in the following table. Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the left is voiceless, the one to the right voiced.

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Labio- velar	Dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b				t d			k g
Affricate
Nasal	m				n
Fricative		f v			s z			(x)	h
Approximant			W				j
Lateral approximant					l

/p/: pit
/b/: bit
/t/: tin
/d/: din
/k/: cut
/g/: gut
//: cheap
//: jeep
/m/: map
/n/: nap
//: bang
/f/: fat
/v/: vat

//: thin
//: then
/s/: sap
/z/: zap
//: she
//: measure
/x/: loch, Chanukah (often replaced by /h-/ and /-k/)
/h/: ham
//: whine (also written /hw/), (only when distinguishing whine/wine, which/witch; otherwise replaced by /w/)
/w/: we
//: run (often written /r/ in broad transcription)
/j/: yes
/l/: left

Consonant Sound Practice

Read the phonemic pronunciation for each word aloud and then click to check if you got it right:

Example

Phonemic pronunciation

Right pronunciation

zero	/'zɪrəʊ/
thunder	/'θʌndər /
shy	/ʃaɪ/
son	/sʌn/
cheese	/tʃi:z/
bottle	/'bɑ:tḷ /
cat	/kæt/
high	/haɪ/
ship	/ʃɪp/
jam	/dʒæm/