English Consonant Sounds

Consonant letters and their sounds

A consonant letter usually represents one consonant sound. Some consonant letters, for example, c, g, s, can represent two different consonant sounds. ( . , , c, g, s, .) Letters b c d f Sounds [b] [s] [k] [d] [f] [g] [j] [zh] [h] [-] [j] [k] [l] [m] [n] [p] [kw] [k] Examples baby, best, buy, bring, blind, absent, about, number, labor, robber, tub center, cellar, cigarette, cinema, agency, notice; cake, come, cucumber, clean, cry, scratch, act, panic day, dear, die, door, duty, admire, hidden, lady, kind, ride, ended fast, female, five, forest, fund, fry, flight, often, deaf, cuff game, gap, get, go, gun, great, global, giggle, ago, begin, dog, egg; general, gin, giant, agent, suggest, Egypt, energy, huge, manage; mirage, garage, beige, rouge hair, help, history, home, hotel, hunt, behind, inherit; hour, honor, honest, heir, vehicle, Sarah jam, Jane, jet, jelly, Jim, jingle, joke, John, June, just Kate, kind, kill, kilogram, sky, blanket, break, take, look late, let, live, alone, close, slim, please, old, nicely, table, file, all make, men, mind, mother, must, my, common, summer, name, form, team napkin, never, night, no, nuclear, funny, student, kindness, ton, sun paper, person, pick, pour, public, repair, apple, keep, top, crisp quality, question, quite, quote, equal, require; unique, technique, antique, grotesque

h j k l m n p q (qu)

r s t v w x z

[r] [s] [z] [t] [v] [w] [ks] [gz] [z] [z] [ts]

rain, red, rise, brief, grow, scream, truck, arrive, hurry, turn, more, car send, simple, song, system, street, lost, kiss, release; cause, present, reason, realism, advise, always, is, was task, tell, time, tone, tune, hotel, attentive, student, boat, rest vast, vein, vivid, voice, even, review, invest, give, move, active wall, war, way, west, wind, word, would, swear, swim, twenty, twist exercise, exchange, expect, ex-wife, axis, fix, relax; exam, exact, executive, exert, exist, exit, exult; Xenon, Xerox, xenophobia, xylophone zero, zoo, horizon, puzzle, crazy, organize, quiz, jazz; pizza, Mozart, Nazi, waltz

Note 1: The letter Y The letter Y can function as a vowel or as a consonant. As a vowel, Y has the vowel sounds [i], [ai]. As a consonant, Y has the consonant sound [y] (i.e., a semivowel sound), usually at the beginning of the word and only in the syllable before a vowel. [i]: baby, hurry, lyrics, mystery; [ai]: by, try, rely, nylon, type; [y]: yacht, yard, year, yes, yet, yield, you, young, Yukon. 1: Y Y . , Y [i], [ai]. , Y [y] (.. ), . [i]: baby, hurry, lyrics, mystery; [ai]: by, try, rely, nylon, type; [y]: yacht, yard, year, yes, yet, yield, you, young, Yukon. Note 2: The letter W The letter W represents the vowel sound [u:] in the diphthongs [au] and [ou]: now, how, owl, brown; low, own, bowl. 2: W W [u:] [au] [ou]: now, how, owl, brown; low, own, bowl.
The -s/es ending of nouns and verbs

After a voiceless consonant: [s] ( : [s]) After a voiced consonant or vowel: [z] ( : [z]) After the letters s, z, x, ch, tch, ge, dge, sh: [iz] ( s, z, x, ch, tch, ge, dge, sh: [iz]) [s] tapes [teips], streets [stri:ts], parks [pa:rks], chiefs [chi:fs], myths [mis] (he) grips [grips], writes [raits], takes [teiks], sniffs [snifs] Pip's [pips], Kate's [keits], Mike's [maiks], Jeff's [jefs], Seth's [ses] [z] ribs [ribz], kids [kidz], legs [legz], leaves [li:vz], clothes [klouz], girls, games, cars, boys, pies [paiz], cows [kauz], cities ['sitiz] (he) robs [robz], reads [ri:dz], digs [digz], saves [seivz], falls, plans, swims, offers, plays, cries, goes [gouz], copies ['kopiz] Abe's [eibz], Fred's [fredz], Meg's [megz], Olive's ['olivz], Ben's [benz], Molly's ['moliz], Anna's [iz] pieces ['pi:siz], roses ['rouziz], prizes ['praiziz], boxes ['boksiz], coaches ['kouchiz], bridges ['brijiz], dishes ['dishiz] (he) kisses ['kisiz], loses ['lu:ziz], relaxes, catches, judges, manages, flashes, washes, rouges Chris's ['krisiz], Tess's ['tesiz], Rose's ['rouziz], Liz's ['liziz], Rex's ['reksiz], George's ['jo:rjiz]

The -ed ending of verbs

After a voiceless consonant: [t] ( : [t]) After a voiced consonant or vowel: [d] ( : [d]) After the letters t, d: [id] ( t, d: [id]) [t] stopped [stopt], liked [laikt], coughed [ko:ft], crossed [cro:st], released [ri'li:st], reached [ri:cht], washed [wosht] [d] robbed [robd], saved [seivd], seized [si:zd], called [ko:ld], planned, occurred, bathed [beid], managed, played, tried, studied [id] wanted ['wontid], hated ['heitid], counted ['kauntid], started, needed [ni:did], loaded ['loudid], folded, added

Consonant combinations

Letters cc ch tch ch (Latin, Greek) ch (French) ck dge

Sounds [ks] [k] [ch]

Examples accent, accept, access, eccentric, accident; accommodate, account, accuse, occur, acclaim chain, check, chief, choose, teacher, much, church; kitchen, catch, match, watch, pitch, stretch character, chemical, Chris, archive, mechanic, technical, ache; champagne, charlatan, chef, chic, machine, cache black, pack, deck, kick, pick, cracker, pocket, rocket bridge, edge, judge, knowledge, budget, badger ghost, ghastly, Ghana, ghetto; cough, enough, rough, tough, laugh; though, through, weigh, neighbor, bought, daughter guard, guess, guest, guide, guitar, dialogue; language, linguistics, Guatemala, Nicaragua king, sing, singer, singing, bang, long, wrong, tongue; finger, anger, angry, longer, longest, single phone, photograph, phrase, phenomenon, biography quality, question, quite, quote, equal, require; unique, technique, antique, grotesque science, scissors, scene, scent, scythe; scan, scandal, scare, score, Scotch, scuba school, scholar, scheme, schedule; schnauzer, schedule share, she, shine, shoe, fish, cash, push, punish thank, thick, think, thought, thunder, author, breath, bath; this, that, then, though, father, brother, breathe, bathe what, when, where, which, while, why,

[k] [sh] [k] [j] [g] [f] [-] [g] [gw] [] []+[g] [f] [kw] [k] [s] [sk] [sk] [sh] [sh] [] [] [w]

gh

gu ng ph qu sc sch sh

th wh

[h] [ks] [ks]+[h] [g]+[z] Sounds [t] [n] [m] [s] [r] [r] Sounds [sh] [zh]

whale, wheel, white; who, whom, whose, whole exhibition; exhumation, exhume, exhale; exhaust, exhibit, exhilarate, exhort, exhume, exhale Examples doubt, debt, subtle; receipt, pterodactyl knee, knife, know; gnome, sign, foreign; pneumonia, pneumatic lamb, climb, bomb, comb, tomb; calm, palm, salmon psalm, pseudonym, psychologist, psychiatrist rhapsody, rhetoric, rheumatism, rhythm, rhyme wrap, wreck, wrestle, wrinkle, wrist, write, wrong Examples nation, patient, special, vicious, pension, Asia, sensual, pressure vision, fusion, Asia, usual, visual, measure, pleasure

xh With silent letters bt, pt kn, gn, pn mb, lm ps rh wr Letters in the suffix ti, ci, si, su si, su

Consona nts
When sounding consonants, air flow is interrupted or limited by the position of the tongue, teeth or lips. The majority of letters in the alphabet are consonant letters. Most consonant letters have only one sound and rarely sound like their name. Click on the following consonant letters to hear examples of their sounds.

BCDFGHJK LMNPQRS TVWXYZ

Vowel s
When sounding vowels, your breath flows freely through the mouth. Five of the 26 alphabet letters are vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. The letter Yis sometimes considered a sixth vowel because it can sound like other vowels. Unlike consonants, each of the vowel letters has more than one type of sound or can even be silent with no sound at all.

Long and Short Vowel s

When a vowel sounds like its name, this is called a long sound. A vowel letter can also have shortsounds. Whether a vowel has a long sound, a short sound, or remains silent, depends on its position in a word and the letters around it. Click on the following vowel letters to hear their long and short sounds.

Vowe lY
The letter Y is sometimes considered a vowel because it can sound like the vowel letters A, E, or Idepending on the letters around it or whether the letter Y is at the middle or end of a word. Click on the following links to hear the different sounds for the letter Y.

Words
When letter sounds are put together, they become words. For example, putting together the sounds of the letters C, A, and T, spells the wordCAT.

C + A + T = CAT

Letter Position
A letter can be in different positions in a word. Click on the three words below that have the letter Ain different positions.

UP

Diphthongs, Modified Vowels and Vowel Digraphs A diphthong is two vowel the ow sound asin cow. sounds in one syllable. The diphthong ow and ou make

1. Words with diphthongs ow and ou

blouse house mouse found hound pound round sound ground cow bow how now wow plow owl fowl howl dowel towel vowel growl our hour flour loud proud out pout about scout shout snout sprout route brown crown clown frown down gown town mouth south count ouch pouch couch tower power flower shower mountain thousand

When the consonant r after the vowel a, it changes the sound of the vowel as in ark.

2. Modified vowels: r words

bar star hark cart farmer barber car bard lark dart harm garden far card mark mart alarm harbor gar guard park part charm harness jar hard shark tart arch harvest mar yard spark chart march market par ark barn start carp pardon tar bark yarn arm harp regard spar dark art farm sharp sparkle A diphthong is two vowels sounds in one syllable. The diphthongs oi and oy make the oi sound as in oil.

3. Words with diphthongs oi and oy

oil boil coil fail soil broil spoil joint point voice choice hoist moist noise boy joy toy coin join poison enjoy destroy loyal royalty

When the consonant r comes after the vowel o, it changes the sound of the vowel as in for. The or sound is marked like this: crn.

4. Modified vowel r words

Lord door floor fork stork fort port short sport forty core more sore tore score snore store horse storm porch torch born corn horn thorn north acorn corner organ uniform

A vowel digraph has two vowels that make one sound. The digraph oo makes the sound of oo as in zoo.

5. Words with the vowel digraph oo as in zoo

broom moose soon pool zoo smooth

room hoop loop goose loose

noodle poodle too moon moon

spoon roost rooster tool fool

spool stool school boot root

shoot roof proof booth tooth

food balloon igloo raccoon snooze

A vowel digraph has two vowels that make one sound. The digraph oo makes the sound of oo as in look.

6. Words with the vowel digraph oo as in book; o, u, and ou can say oo

book cook hook look nook took brook crook shook cookie booklet brooklet good hood stood wood woody wooden wool woolen foot soot unhook lookout wolf wolves put bush push cushion
bull

full pull could would should

When the consonant r comes after the vowel e, it changes the sound of the vowel as in herd. The er sound is a combination of the schwa () and r sounds.

7. Modified vowel er words

herd germ term fern eternal verse serve person father mother brother sister cracker hammer pitcher rocker water zipper fir sir stir giraffe circle circus bird third girl firm squirrel dirt shirt skirt first birthday thirteen thirty fur curb church injure sure curl burn turn turkey purple hurry nurse purse burst hurt curtain turtle heard pearl early earn learn earth word work world worm worry worship worth

The vowel o makes different sounds and one of them is the sound of as in dg.

8. Words with the sound of as in dog

off dog fog hog log frog smog boss toss cross cloth moth belong strong wrong ball call fall hall mall tall wall claw small stall talk walk stalk salt malt law paw saw draw straw thaw dawn fawn lawn yawn brawn drawn hawk brawl crawl shawl sprawl faucet awning awful auto because caught daughter naughty taught fault ought brought fought brought thought autumn haughty laundry cough (f)

You have learned the sound of r as in arm. These letters also make the sound ofare as in squre.

9. Modified re words
bare care blare flare fair hair pear tear cherry their aware barrel

dare share pair wear where dairy hare carry stair berry there errand rare marry chair ferry carrot error ware air bear merry parrot square The letter c usually has the sound of s when it is followed by the vowels e, i, or y. This is called the soft sound of c. Likewise, the soft sound of the letter g makes the j sound when it is followed by e, i, or y.

10. The soft sounds of the letters c and g

ice dice lice mice nice rice vice slice spice price twice juice base face lace pace race brace place space trace chance glance city cymbals ounce bounce pounce fence pencil prince lettuce celery necklace circle circus age cage gage page rage sage stage wage badge large barge charge gem ridge bridge gum gypsy Egypt wedge
hedge

pledge engine giraffe hinge danger giant orange range change manger

A vowel digraph has two vowels that makes one sound. The digraph ea makes the sound of e as in head.

11. Words with the vowel digraph ea which has the short vowel e sound
dead head lead read ready bread dread spread stead steady instead tread thread deaf breakfast health wealth cleanser meant weapons peasant pleasant pleasure sweat threat breath death feather heather leather sweater weather headache treasure measure meadow

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