Voiceless and Voiced Consonants

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Voiceless and Voiced Consonants

One way that we categorized consonants is by determining whether they are voiceless or voiced. It's important to know the difference between these types because the length of a vowel that precedes a consonant is determined by whether the consonant that follows it is voiceless or voiced. Also, knowing whether a sound is voiceless or voiced will help you to correctly pronounce letters such as "-ed" and "-s" at the ends of words.

First, let's learn how to distinguish between a voiced and a voiceless consonant. Place your fingers in the front, middle part of your neck. Now say /z/ as in the word zoo. Now, let's make it longer: zzzzzzz. You should feel vibration in your vocal cords. This is how you know that the /z/ sound is voiced. Now let's try this with the /s/ sound as in the word sat. Say /s/. Now let's prolong it sssssss. This time there was not vibration in your vocal cords, so this consonant is considered unvoiced. That's all there is to it. The tongue and lip positions of the /z/ and /s/ are identical. The only difference between them is vibration or no vibration. Look at the other consonat pairs that are produced exactly the same way, except for the vibration in the vocal cords.

Voiceless and Voiced Consonants Sound Pairs

Voiceless			Voiced
/p/	pet		/b/	bet
	rope			robe
/t/	ten		/d/	den
	seat			seed
/k/	class		/g/	glass
	back			bag
/f/	fault		/v/	vault
	leaf			leave
/θ/	thank		/ð/	this
	breath			breathe
/s/	sink		/z/	zinc
	price			prize
/ʃ/	pressure		/ʒ/	pleasure
	wish			massage
/tʃ/	choke		/ʤ/	joke
	rich			ridge

Voiced Consonants Sounds

Now let's go through the rest of the consonants sounds of English. These consonants are all voiced, but they have no voiceless pair. Make sure that you feel the vibration in your local cords as you say them.

/m/	mon
	from
	lemon
/n/	non
	fun
	any
/ŋ/	going
	spring
	king
/l/	love
	will
	yellow
/r/	red
	four
	card
/w/ (*)	win
	lower
	quiet
/j/ (*)	yes
	mayor
	young

(*) The letter w and y with their consonant sound /w/ and /j/ respectively, are sometimes called 'semivowels' because they are made in a similar way to a vowel, but functions in contrast to vowels when used in words. The letter y can be used to represent different sounds in different words: as the /ɪ/ sound vowel in myth and hymn, as the diphthong /aɪ/ sound in my, as /i/ sound in beyond, and the consonant sound /j/ in young and yes. The /w/ sound is very close to the vowel sound /u/ as in wet and software.

Voiceless Consonant /h/ Sound

This final consonant sound is voiceless and does not have a voiced pair that it corresponds to.

/h/	happy
	behave
	who

Phonetic Chart

PLACE ↓	MANNER →	Stop	Africativa	Affricativa	Nasal	Liquid	Glide
Bilabial	Voiceless	p			m
	Voiced	b					w
Labio-dental	Voiceless		f
	Voiced		v
Lingua-dental	Voiceless		θ
	Voiced		ð
Lingua-alveolar	Voiceless	t	s	tʃ
	Voiced	d	z	dʒ	n	l
Alveo-palatar	Voiceless		ʃ	(tʃ)
	Voiced		ʒ	(dʒ)		r
Lingua-palatal	Voiceless						j
	Voiced
Lingua-velar	Voiceless	k
	Voiced	g			ŋ
Glottal	Voiceless		h
	Voiced

* /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ can be considered Lingua-alveolar because begin with /t/ and /d/, or Lingua-palatal because end with /ʃ/ and /ʒ/.

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