Where you pronounce the consonant
Consonants have features, as well, but not the same features we used to distinguish vowels. First, let's consider where in your mouth you pronounce the consonant sound. If you press your lips together (like "b" in "blip"), you make a labial sound. If instead you press your tongue against your teeth (like "th" in "thin"), you make a dental sound. Against the gum ridge behind your teeth (as "s" in "speech"), and you produce analveolar sound. Against the roof of your mouth (like "sh" in "ash"), and the sound is palatal. Up against the back of your mouth (like "g" in "grammar"), and you articulate a velar sound. This is called the consonant phoneme's place of articulation, in other words, where you form the phoneme. Dental, alveolar, palatal and velar all describe places of articulation.
How you pronounce the consonant
Then, consider that you can produce different types of sounds at a certain place in your mouth. If, again, you press your two lips together, you can press your lips together very tightly and release a popping /p/ sound. You could, instead, keep your lips lightly together and release a steady flow of air, which sounds not quite like an English /f/ (it's the sound of the Japanese "f" in "furigana"). Both sounds are labial, which describes their place of articulation. But the sharp, popping sound is a stop (also called plosive, from Latin for "beat" or "slap"), and the less restricted, consistent flow of air makes a fricative sound (from Latin for "rub").
Now, let's change the place of articulation by pressing your tongue against the gum ridge behind your upper teeth. If you make a strong plosive/stop sound on your gum ridge, you make a /t/ sound. If you let gentle stream of air pass between your tongue and gums, you pronounce an /s/ sound instead. This feature is known as manner of articulation, in other words, how you form the phoneme.
Whether or not you voice the consonant
The final consonant feature we'll learn about has to do with the vibration of your vocal chords. Notice that when you hum, your throat vibrates, but when you whisper quietly, it doesn't. Your "voicebox", the vocal folds on your larynx, vibrate when you make voiced sounds (like /z/, /d/, and /b/), but stay still when you pronounce voiceless sounds (like /s/, /t/ and /p/). This feature is called voicing. In fact, it's safe to say that the onlydifference between /s/ and /z/ is the voicing of /z/ (the same holds for /t/ & /d/ or /p/ & /b/), making these phonemes voiced-voiceless pairs.
Combining the three features to identify specific consonants
Like with vowels, we can't identify specific consonants based on voicing, place of articulation or manner of articulation alone. We must treat these features as building blocks of consonants. Certain combinations of the three features produce specific, identifiable consonants. For example, instead of speaking about "the consonant in the word thing", we can accurately describe the "voiceless dental fricative". You can consider the relationship between these features as a chart with three axes, with place of articulation on the x-axis, manner of articulation on the y-axis and voicing as the z-axis. In the table below, relevant sounds are given as "voiceless, voiced" pairs.
| labial | dental | alveolar | palatal | velar | glottal | |
| nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| plosive | p, b | t, d | k, g | ʔ | ||
| fricative | f, v | θ, ð | s, z | ʃ, ʒ | x | h |
| affricate | tʃ, dʒ | |||||
| approximant | r | j | w | |||
| lateral | l |
Recognizing IPA consonants in English & other languages
Most of the sounds in the table above are easily recognizable in everyday English words. Here are some clear examples:
| IPA symbols | example words |
| /m/ | more |
| /n/ | none |
| /ŋ/ | singing (no actual /g/ sound) |
| /θ/ | thing (voiceless) |
| /ð/ | that (voiced) |
| /s/ | said |
| /z/ | prize |
| /ʃ/ | sharp |
| /ʒ/ | pleasure |
| /x/ | Scottish loch ("hard H" sound) |
| /h/ | hear |
| /tʃ/ | cheek |
| /dʒ/ | jaw |
| /j/ | yes |
Notice that the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are combinations of two phonemes heard as a single sound. The glottal stop is often described as a catch in the throat (the sound found between "uh-uh", the negative counterpart to "uh-huh), You can hear this glottal stop "catch" before initial vowels in English: "every" /ʔɛvrij/.
English speakers have a tougher time with plosives. Specifically, speakers tend to pronounce the voiceless plosives with a puff of air, really an /h/ sound: "take" starts with a sequence of phonemes like /t/ + /h/ rather than just a bare /t/. That aspiration (h- or aitch-sound) is absent when you pronounce /p/ in speak, /t/ in stay and /k/ in sky, so imitate that sound to pronounce /p/ /t/ /k/ as "pure" voiceless plosives. You shouldn't have any trouble with their voiced counterparts /b/ (be), /d/ (day) and /g/ (guy).
As you further develop your comparison skills and your good ear, you can notice these consonant phonemes in foreign languages. Spanish plosives "p" and "t" sound like /p/ and /t/ (without the puff of air as I described above). Italian "c" sounds like /k/ before /a/, /o/, /u/ but /tʃ/ in front of /e/ and /i/. Japanese has the affricates /ts/ and /dz/, which aren't heard as single sounds in English but can be imitated easily by stringing together /t/ + /s/ and /d/ + /z/. The alveolar tap /ɾ/ of Spanish, Portuguese or Italian /r/ in "caro" is the same sound of American English "later" or "stutter".
More precise definitions and other features
Place and manner of articulation can be pinpointed more scientifically and exactly than I have done. The sounds /ʃ/ and /ʒ/, which I label as palatal, are actually "postalveolar" (slightly above and behind the alveolar ridge). You can deepen your understanding by considering which part of your tongue presses against which part of your mouth - the tip of the tongue is involved in coronal sounds (including dental and alveolar), while the body and back of the tongue articulates dorsal phonemes (including velar). Labial sounds emphasize the lips rather than the tongue (including bilabial sounds like /b/ and labiodental ones like /v/). Radical and glottal sounds are made with the base of your tongue and the back of your throat.
source: www.nativlang.com/linguistics
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