How to Pronounce Voiced and Unvoiced Consonant Pairs
Alex CaseStudying how to pronounce pairs of related voiced consonants and unvoiced consonants not only helps with distinguishing between them while listening and speaking, but also shows their similarities and so how they are different from other consonant pairs. For example, learners who have problems distinguishing the sound /b/ from /v/ but can pronounce /p/ and /f/ can simply add their voice to the mouth position of /p/ to make /b/ and make a voiced version of /f/ to produce /v/. This article explains how to do so.
Voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs
Most English consonant sounds can be put into voiced and unvoiced pairs, namely:
- /b/ and /p/ in “ban” and “pan”
- /g/ and /k/ in “girl” and “curl”
- /d/ and /t/ in “dawn” and “torn”
- /v/ and /f/ in “van” and “fan”
- /ʤ/ and /ʧ/ in “jug” and “chug”
- /ʒ/ and /ʃ/ in “leisure”/ “measure” and “pressure”/ “fresh”
- /ð/ and /θ/ in “bathe”/ “the” and “bath”/ “three”
- /z/ and /s/ in “zoo” and “sue”
Understanding the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants
As the names “voiced” and “unvoiced” suggest, the voiced sounds on the left above need your vocal cords, while the ones on the right don’t. You can feel the difference by choosing a pair that you can pronounce and touching the side of your throat when you say them as long single sounds (“vvvvvvv” then “fffffff”, etc). Your hand should be able to feel a vibration during the voiced sound and sense that the vibration disappears during the unvoiced version, e.g. vibrating during “zzzzzzz” and not vibrating during “ssssssss”. The same can also be done by covering your ears with your hands and hearing a booming sound with the voiced version, e.g. a boom with “djjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj” but not with “chhhhhhhhh”.
There is also one more difference, although one that is less famous and more difficult to practise. More air is generally released with the unvoiced version. For instance, if you hold a tissue in front of your mouth while you pronounce “b” and then do the same with “p”, the tissue should move much more during the unvoiced “p” sound.
During the holding your throat, covering your ears and holding a tissue activities above, the actual mouth shape should stay the same, with only the use of the voice changing. You can check this with a mirror or selfie camera.
How to learn and use voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs
Start by doing one or more of the activities above (holding your neck, covering your ears and/ or holding a tissue) with easy pairs of sounds for you, e.g. with “zzz” and “sss”. Then try the same activities with pairs above for which you can easily pronounce one sound but are not so sure about the other, e.g. /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ if your language has the former but not the latter.
For pairs for that you don’t know either sound of, you’ll need more help such as YouTube videos of people making the mouth shape that both sounds share. You can use the techniques above to make sure that the right changes are made when you switch from one sound to the other.
You will then be ready to use these techniques to help distinguish between different pairs of sounds. For example, if you tend to mix up “with” and “whizz”, you can make the easier distinction of /θ/ and /s/ in “thing” and “sing”, then make the same two mouth shapes while you practise /ð/ and /z/.
