An Introduction to Consonants

What you will learn in this video:

• What is a consonant sound?

• What makes consonants different from one another?

• How do you learn to see, hear and feel a consonant?

What is a Consonant?

🤔

When you speak,air flows out of your face

(Nose and/or Mouth)

When air flowsout of your mouthfreely (no block),

you make a “Vowel”

If airflow through your mouth is

blocked in any way, you make a

“Consonant”

Vowel = Airflow through mouth unblocked

Consonant = Airflow through mouth blocked

What makes consonants different from one another?

🤔

The 3 “Features” of a Consonant

• Place - lips, tongue-tip, back of tongue, etc. - where airflow is blocked affects the sound.

• Manner - fricative, approximant, stop - the way airflow is blocked affects the sound

• Voicing - voiced, unvoiced - whether your vocal folds vibrate or not during blockage affects the sound.

A few more notes on consonants• A “consonant sound” is not the same as a “consonant

letter.” (Phonology vs orthography)

• There are almost always more consonant sounds than consonant letters (e.g. English has 27 consonant sounds but only 21 consonant letters).

• You can’t trust the spelling to know how to pronounce a word, you can only trust your ear once it’s tuned to the consonants.

How do you learn a consonant?

🤔

How to See, Hear and Feel Consonants

• How to See: Use a speech organ diagram to visualize place of consonant, and graphics to visualize manner and voicing.

• How to Hear: Using your mind’s eye to guide you, listen to words of same consonant to recognize, then listen to comparisons to distinguish.

• How to Feel: Using your mind’s eye and your ear to guide you, adjust your articulators to match native speaker’s.

How to See Consonants

Speech OrganDiagram

How to See Consonants

Lips (Bilabial)/m/, /b/, /p/

Place

How to See Consonants

Tongue-tip (Alveolar)/t/, /d/, /n/, /l/

Place

How to See Consonants

Tongue-Middle (Palatal)/j/, /ɹ/

Place

How to See Consonants

Stop/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/

Manner

How to See Consonants

Fricative /s/, /z/, /f/, /v/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /θ/, /ð/

Manner

How to See Consonants

Nasal /n/, /m/, /ŋ/

Manner

How to See Consonants

Voiced /b/, /v/, /z/, /g/

Voicing

How to See Consonants

Voiceless /p/, /f/, /s/, /k/

Voicing

How to Hear ConsonantsRepetition for Recognition

/ð/the

although then

rather other

bother

How to Hear ConsonantsComparison for Distinction

/ð/the

though then

rather other

bother

/θ/thumb thought

thin thesis third

thirsty

ðθ

How to Feel Consonants

• Understand how the sound is made through visualization.

• Tune your ear to recognize and distinguish the sound.

• Follow our step-by-step tutorials to find the pronunciation in your mouth, using your ear and mind’s eye as a guide.

Review

• Consonants are made when airflow through the mouth is blocked

• There are 3 features to a consonant: place, manner, and voicing.

• We use speech organ diagrams to see consonant pronunciation.