English Club : Learn English : Pronunciation : Minimal Pairs : final /ʤ/ and /ʤi:/

Minimal Pairs final /ʤ/ and /ʤi:/

orange and orangy

Below are lists of words that vary only by one ending with the sound /ʤ/ and the other ending with the sound /ʤi:/. You can use this to practise the sounds or as a list of words to be careful to pronounce properly.

This page uses the symbols of the Phonemic Chart. You can listen to the symbols here.

You can practise ending the words below with the right consonant sound by building up the pronunciation of the word one sound at a time backwards from the final one, e.g. "ge" then "nge", "ange" and "range" until you end up with "orange".

1					g	e
2				n	g	e
3			a	n	g	e
4		r	a	n	g	e
5	o	r	a	n	g	e

Concentrating very hard on getting the right number of syllables can also help. Note that any word below ending in /ʤi:/ has one syllable more than its minimal pair ending in /ʤ/ (i.e., the word on the right has one syllable more than the word on the left).

Elementary

orange orangy*
village villagey

Pre-Intermediate

beige beigy*
edge edgy*
sponge spongy*

Intermediate

cage cagey*
hedge hedgy*
range rangy*
stage stagy*

Upper-Intermediate

budge budgie
dodge dodgy*
fudge fudgy*
grunge grungy
podge* podgy
wedge wedgie*

Advanced

barge bargy
bilge bilgy
bulge bulgy
dinge dingy
dirge dirgy
kludge kludgy
minge mingy
sludge sludgy
smudge smudgy
splodge splodgy
stodge stodgy
whinge whingey

* the meaning of the word is not important at this level, but it can still be used to contrast the pronunciation with the other word.