Consonant Sounds

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Consonant Sounds

A consonant letter usually represents one consonant sound. Some consonant letters, for example, c, g, s, can represent two different consonant sounds.

In the following chart, there are all consonant sounds. The sounds are represented between square brackets [ ]. Some sounds are represented also in IPA phonetic notation between forward slash / / to clarify the consonant sound ([j] and /j/ are different sounds):

Letters	Sounds	Examples
b	[b]	baby, best, buy, bring, blind, absent, about, number, labor, robber, tub
c	[s] [k]	center, cellar, cigarette, cinema, agency, notice; cake, come, cucumber, clean, cry, scratch, act, panic
d	[d]	day, dear, die, door, duty, admire, hidden, lady, kind, ride, ended
f	[f]	fast, female, five, forest, fund, fry, flight, often, deaf, cuff
g	[g] [j] (IPA=/ʤ/) [zh] (IPA=/ʒ/)	game, gap, get, go, gun, great, global, giggle, ago, begin, dog, egg; general, gin, giant, agent, suggest, Egypt, energy, huge, manage; mirage, garage, beige, rouge
h	[h] [-]	hair, help, history, home, hotel, hunt, behind, inherit; hour, honor, honest, heir, vehicle, Sarah
j	[j] (IPA=/ʤ/)	jam, Jane, jet, jelly, Jim, jingle, joke, John, June, just
k	[k]	Kate, kind, kill, kilogram, sky, blanket, break, take, look
l	[l]	late, let, live, alone, close, slim, please, old, nicely, table, file, all
m	[m]	make, men, mind, mother, must, my, common, summer, name, form, team
n	[n]	napkin, never, night, no, nuclear, funny, student, kindness, ton, sun
p	[p]	paper, person, pick, pour, public, repair, apple, keep, top, crisp
q (qu)	[kw] [k]	quality, question, quite, quote, equal, require; unique, technique, antique, grotesque
r	[r]	rain, red, rise, brief, grow, scream, truck, arrive, hurry, turn, more, car
s	[s] [z]	send, simple, song, system, street, lost, kiss, release; cause, present, reason, realism, advise, always, is, was
t	[t]	task, tell, time, tone, tune, hotel, attentive, student, boat, rest
v	[v]	vast, vein, vivid, voice, even, review, invest, give, move, active
w	[w]	wall, war, way, west, wind, word, would, swear, swim, twenty, twist
x	[ks] [gz] [z]	exercise, exchange, expect, ex-wife, axis, fix, relax; exam, exact, executive, exert, exist, exit, exult; Xenon, Xerox, xenophobia, xylophone
z	[z] [ts]	zero, zoo, horizon, puzzle, crazy, organize, quiz, jazz; pizza, Mozart, Nazi, waltz

 

Note 1: The letter Y

The letter Y can function as a vowel or as a consonant. As a vowel, Y has the vowel sounds [i], and [ai]. As a consonant, Y has the consonant sound [y] (IPA=/j/) (i.e., a semivowel sound), usually at the beginning of the word and only in the syllable before a vowel.

[i]: baby, hurry, lyrics, mystery;

[ai]: by, try, rely, nylon, type;

[y] (IPA=/j/): yacht, yard, year, yes, yet, yield, you, young, Yukon.

 

Note 2: The letter W

The letter W represents the vowel sound [u:] in the diphthongs [au] (IPA=/aʊ/) and [ou] (IPA=/aʊ/:
now, how, owl, brown; low, own, bowl.

 

The -s/es ending of nouns and verbs

After a voiceless consonant: [s]

After a voiced consonant or vowel: [z]

After the letters s, z, x, ch, tch, ge, dge, sh: [iz]

 

[s]	[z]	[iz]
tapes [teips], streets [stri:ts], parks [pa:rks], chiefs [chi:fs], myths [miθs]	ribs [ribz], kids [kidz], legs [legz], leaves [li:vz], clothes [klouðz], girls, games, cars, boys, pies [paiz], cows [kauz], cities ['sitiz]	pieces ['pi:siz], roses ['rouziz], prizes ['praiziz], boxes ['boksiz], coaches ['kouchiz], bridges ['brijiz], dishes ['dishiz]
(he) grips [grips], writes [raits], takes [teiks], sniffs [snifs]	(he) robs [robz], reads [ri:dz], digs [digz], saves [seivz], falls, plans, swims, offers, plays, cries, goes [gouz], copies ['kopiz]	(he) kisses ['kisiz], loses ['lu:ziz], relaxes, catches, judges, manages, flashes, washes, rouges
Pip's [pips], Kate's [keits], Mike's [maiks], Jeff's [jefs], Seth's [seθs]	Abe's [eibz], Fred's [fredz], Meg's [megz], Olive's ['olivz], Ben's [benz], Molly's ['moliz], Anna's	Chris's ['krisiz], Tess's ['tesiz], Rose's ['rouziz], Liz's ['liziz], Rex's ['reksiz], George's ['jo:rjiz]

 

The -ed ending of verbs

After a voiceless consonant: [t]

After the letters t, d: [id]

 

[t]	[d]	[id]
stopped [stopt], liked [laikt], coughed [ko:ft], crossed [cro:st], released [ri'li:st], reached [ri:cht], washed [wosht]	robbed [robd], saved [seivd], seized [si:zd], called [ko:ld], planned, occurred, bathed [beiðd], managed, played, tried, studied	wanted ['wontid], hated ['heitid], counted ['kauntid], started, needed [ni:did], loaded ['loudid], folded, added

 

Consonant combinations

Letters	Sounds	Examples
cc	[ks] [k]	accent, accept, access, eccentric, accident; accommodate, account, accuse, occur, acclaim
ch tch	[ch] (IPA=/tʃ/)	chain, check, chief, choose, teacher, much, church; kitchen, catch, match, watch, pitch, stretch
ch (Latin, Greek) ch (French)	[k] [sh] (IPA-/ʃ/)	character, chemical, Chris, archive, mechanic, technical, ache; champagne, charlatan, chef, chic, machine, cache
ck	[k]	black, pack, deck, kick, pick, cracker, pocket, rocket
dge	[j] (IPA=/ʤ/)	bridge, edge, judge, knowledge, budget, badger
gh	[g] [f] [-]	ghost, ghastly, Ghana, ghetto; cough, enough, rough, tough, laugh; though, through, weigh, neighbor, bought, daughter
gu	[g] [gw]	guard, guess, guest, guide, guitar, dialogue; language, linguistics, Guatemala, Nicaragua
ng	[ŋ] [ŋ]+[g]	king, sing, singer, singing, bang, long, wrong, tongue; finger, anger, angry, longer, longest, single
ph	[f]	phone, photograph, phrase, phenomenon, biography
qu	[kw] [k]	quality, question, quite, quote, equal, require; unique, technique, antique, grotesque
sc	[s] [sk]	science, scissors, scene, scent, scythe; scan, scandal, scare, score, Scotch, scuba
sch	[sk] [sh] (IPA=/ʃ/)	school, scholar, scheme, schedule; schnauzer, schedule (British)
sh	[sh] (IPA=/ʃ/)	share, she, shine, shoe, fish, cash, push, punish
th	[th] (IPA=/θ/) [th] (IPA=/ð/)	thank, thick, think, thought, thunder, author, breath, bath; this, that, then, though, father, brother, breathe, bathe
wh	[w] [h]	what, when, where, which, while, why, whale, wheel, white; who, whom, whose, whole
xh	[ks] [ks]+[h] [g]+[z]	exhibition; exhumation, exhume, exhale; exhaust, exhibit, exhilarate, exhort, exhume, exhale
With silent letters	Sounds	Examples
bt, pt	[t]	doubt, debt, subtle; receipt, pterodactyl
kn, gn, pn	[n]	knee, knife, know; gnome, sign, foreign; pneumonia, pneumatic
mb, lm	[m]	lamb, climb, bomb, comb, tomb; calm, palm, salmon
ps	[s]	psalm, pseudonym, psychologist, psychiatrist
rh	[r]	rhapsody, rhetoric, rheumatism, rhythm, rhyme
wr	[r]	wrap, wreck, wrestle, wrinkle, wrist, write, wrong
Letters in the suffix	Sounds	Examples
ti, ci, si, su	[sh] (IPA=/ʃ/)	nation, patient, special, vicious, pension, Asia, sensual, pressure
si, su	[zh] (IPA=/ʒ/)	vision, fusion, Asia, usual, visual, measure, pleasure

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