Consonants Sounds In English | StudyTution

understanding a speech sounds, has an even greater role in learning to speak in an impressive manner.
Understanding the sound system of the target language and in this case, English here, understanding the way we speak, looking at ourselves while we speak is very important for developing ourselves as an impressive speaker.
And this comes from the confidence that we gain through this understanding, through learning about these nuances.

types of sounds

We have vowel sounds, and then we have consonant sounds.
So there are 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds in English.
We know vowel sounds are more fundamental.
That is, we must have at least one vowel sound in every word in any language.
That is for every word in English; there must be one vowel sound, which is to say, vowel sounds are more fundamental to the word in English.
we write consonents sounds with letters, with symbols, but we speak differently.

Consonents sounds

English sounds are p, b, t, d, k, g.
These are in English consonant sounds. And this chart on your screen tells you about 24 consonant sounds in English
They also tell you about their places of articulations that are on this axis you can see that p and b are bilabial sounds.
Which means we can only we need two lips in contact with each other to produce these sounds.
Say just the sound pa and observe what happens; p, b.
We need the two lips coming close together.
And therefore they are called bilabial sounds, and some people call it labial sounds
M is also a labial sound; m, we need both lips together, but this is a nasal.
So on horizontal axis we have so this is talking about places of articulations.
And in vertical axis we have the manner in which they are spoken.
So, m is a nasal sound.
When you pay attention to the sound, you will see this has nasal, this is a nasal sounds m.
p and b are not nasal sounds; they are stop sounds. So what is important also to

the distinction between what we mean by stop and what we mean by nasal

all speech sounds are produced by modifying the exhaling flow of air in our oral cavity.
One more time, modifying means they get either stopped or some kind of modification happens in our
oral cavity.

Articulators

Oral cavity looks like this.
This is the oral cavity, and this part here is the nasal cavity

what happens is when the exhaling flow of air moves from here

it moves up, and then you see this part uvula it gets when it gets raised it closes this small cavity that is
it closes the flow of air through this cavity, and then the flow moves through this.
When the flow moves through the oral cavity, all the sounds are called oral sounds.
When this uvula gets lowered, and some bit of flow moves through the nasal cavity, then we get nasal sounds.

Distinction Between oral Abd Nasal

So when we say m is a nasal sound, that means in the production of m, the uvula gets lowered and little bit flow of air moves through the oral cavity, move through the nasal cavity.
And therefore we get this thing as bilabial nasal sound.
So this is the distinction between oral and nasal sound as you see from the distinction in the oral cavity and nasal cavity.
All sounds are produced through the flow by modifying the flow of exhaling air.

Inhaling and Exhaling

We inhale.
Inhaling and exhaling is a continuous process for us.
And after inhaling when we exhale, the exhaling flow of air and its modification at different places in our
oral cavity and nasal cavity is responsible for a speech sounds.
That is an important part to understand about any speech sound in any language.
So this is what we mean by so this chart tells you m is a bilabial. But it is a nasal sound.

What Is Stop

P and b are bilabial sounds, but they are not nasal, they are called stop sounds.
the flow of air moves through this oral cavity comes here all the way to lips.
These are called lips as you see here.
And so the air moves, and it is completely blocked here before the release.
So the complete block is what they mean by stop.
It is also called plosive because we release that with little bit explosion.
Therefore sometimes it is called plosive sounds as well.
So these are different terms that are used for these sounds that are understanding the features of these sounds.

How these sounds help us

they are not important.
These terms are not important. Neither this process is important for you to know to speak English.
However, if you know this, it is certain that your knowledge about these features of sounds that we speak is definitely going to help you stand out.
It will give you a distinction when you speak.
It will matter.
It will make you a confident speaker in an impressive way.

Why They are called bilabial sounds?

As lips become, so say p again and see it for yourself.
When you say p, the moment two lips come together, that is for total closure.
And then we release the flow of air, and thus we get.
So every time there is, we get p.
So every time we get total closure, such sounds are called stop sounds.
And that is the reason why it is called a bilabial stop.

labio-dental sounds

In English, p is a bilabial sound, but f is not a bilabial
sound.
So in a word like father, f is a labio-dental sound.
Upper teeth and lower lip come together f.
Not both lips. The same thing happens when we say v, this sound.
These are according to places of articulation these two sounds are labio-dental sounds.
Upper teeth, lower lips together.
But according to the manner of articulation, this is a a fricative.
That is when you say f it is not complete blockers of the flow of air.
It is not a complete release also.
So there is some sort of friction here, which is indicated as a fricative.

Dental Sounds

Then we go to dental sounds like th and d.
This is th and this is d, th and d.
You see, the tip of the tongue touches teeth. That is the meaning of dental sounds.
So according to the place of articulation th, d they are dental, but they are still fricative.

alveolar

S and z are not dental also.
These were f labio-dental. Upper teeth and lower lips.
Th dental, both teeth tip of the tongue.
S, tip of the tongue moves towards the upper side of the upper teeth, and that is called alveolar sound.
S and the friction that is friction in the flow of air still continues.
So they are all fricative sounds in English.
This is sh.
Sh and this is again a different kind of z.

Post alveolar and patal

sh is post-alveolar okay.
It becomes very close to; this is very close to the palatal.
The moment you move from the alveolar region that is the teeth reach area of the upper lip, upper teeth, it can become palatal also.
But in English this is not palatal, it is just post-alveolar it is pre-palatal sound.
And then you have h.
It is still a fricative sound, but that is too low in the oral cavity towards the glottis.
This is called the labial area.
This is teeth is; these are teeth.
So this is dental sounds are coming from here.
If you have something from here, then you have alveolar.
This is the alveolar region.
And somewhere here will be called between palate and alveolar region you will be the sound will be called post- alveolar and then becomes palatal.

Velum

k and g coming from velum, velum area.
K and g they are velar sounds in English.]

Articulators

this picture of our articulators that is the different places, different organs in oral cavity like tongue, teeth, lips and different places like alveolar ridge, palate, or velum they play an important role in producing sounds because the exhaling flow of air gets modified at these different places.
And thus we get a clear picture of how we produce vowels, how we produce consonant sounds in English.

th and d they are dental sounds.
T and d are not dental sounds.
In English, they are alveolar sounds.
So when we speak t in English the tip of the tongue goes to the alveolar ridge.
Tip of the tongue is raised, touches teeth and the muscular area which is also known as the alveolar ridge.
The same thing happens when we say d.
So this is d, which is dental and this is d, which is alveolar.
k is a velar sound.
A sound like p is a labial sound.
A sound like t in English it is alveolar, but in our language, it is a t is a t sound, is a dental sound.
D in our language is also dental.
Ch is a palatal sound in our languages, and what we speak in our languages, this is a critical thing for us to understand.
This entire series of sounds that we speak a lot in India, but these sounds are not there in English. That is T, Th, D, Dh, N.
These sounds are part of our languages that we speak, that we grew up speaking before we started learning English.
In some of our languages, when we speak English, these sounds appear and therefore, we do not sound the way English speakers sound. It will not, if we
understand how we speak and why we speak. We speak because we grew up speaking
these things.

Sound In English

For a sound like alveolar t in English, what happens is the tip of the tongue goes to the alveolar ridge.
For a sound like Hindi or Indian t, th, d, speak it to yourself, you will see t, th, it does not have to make you shy.
You need to speak it for yourself to realize and then understand this distinction very carefully.
It will require some practice.
You see, the tip of the tongue folds backwards.
And then it hits the alveolar region in our oral cavity, folds backward, hits it up.
T, th, d, for each one of these sounds.
And we are so used to this that they will come in other languages, when we speak other languages.
Our t is a retroflex sound because of the folding of the tongue.
For English alveolar, for English speakers, this alveolar sound is very simple.
It happens without folding of the tongue. Just straight away, the tongue goes to the alveolar ridge area, and we speak these sounds.
K, when we say k, it is a velar stop in our languages also.
But when we say kh, it has little extra aspiration. And then it becomes kh.

Nasal Sound

ng, ny N n m these are nasal sounds that we were talking about in lowering down uvula and flow of air through the nasal cavity also.
So when we say m, it is a nasal sound.
When we say n it is a nasal sound.
The only according to the place of articulation, the distinction is m is a bilabial nasal.
N is a dental nasal. Ny is a palatal nasal and ng is a velar nasal.
So that is the, and this is a retroflex nasal.

Oral Sound

When we look at oral sounds, what we see is a k sound is a non-aspirated sound for us.
Because what when it becomes aspirated it becomes kh.
When you say g, say it a couple of times if you do not feel this.
When you say g, you see more vibration on your hands and fingers.
That vibration happens vocal cords and this is called voicing.
So g is voiced, but non-aspirated. Gh is voiced and aspirated both.
So that way in our oral cavity, we make four-way distinction. K, Kh, G, Gh.
So, k is not aspirated, not voiced. Kh is aspirated but not voiced. G is not aspirated but voiced.
And gh, gh is both aspirated and voiced.
So we make this four-way distinction.
The same thing happens for c, ch, j, jh.
The same thing happens for our retroflex sounds, t, th that is th is aspirated, t is not aspirated; d is voiced, and dh is also voiced.
But the distinction between d and dh is they are one is a non-aspirated, the other is aspirated.
Same thing with t, th, d, dh. Same with p, ph, b, bh.

why velar sounds come first, why palatal comes second, why a retroflex third, why dental fourth, and while labial last?

You see because exhaling flow of air is responsible for a speech sound.
So the first place is velum, then we have a palate, then we have a retroflex alveolar area, then we have teeth, and then we have lips.
So it moves in this direction.
Therefore, it is arranged that way.

Two main points

some of these sounds are in our languages.
And these sounds are specifically for English.
When we put these two things together, we see that we speak these sounds effortlessly and we use them in English also.
But when we want to improve, we need to reach here.
We are good with p, b, m, f, v ,th, d, s, z, h, y, r,

Distinction Between letters

There are some specific things where we need attention.
That is a lot of speakers in our country; speakers of different languages do not make a distinction between s and sh.
That is also fine. But while speaking English, we need to pay attention to that because it makes it does make a distinction in our languages also.
But in some languages, this distinction does not exist.
it works when we say j and z.
Our j and English z are different.
We do have z in lot of that is a lot of Perso-Arabic sounds in some of our languages too.
we need to pay attention to this distinction between f as a labio-dental and ph as bilabial.
Z and j, that is one palatal you see, this z is alveolar, okay, and this j is palatal.

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