Have you ever wondered about the differences between voiced consonants and voiceless consonants?
Have you ever wished that you can pronounce voiced and voiceless sounds in the right way
and in the right words?
Well in this video I'm going to focus on voiced consonants and I'm going to show you how to
pronounce voiced consonants and in what sorts of words they appear.
So here we go.
Voiced consonants are made by bringing your vocal folds together.
Perhaps the only way that we can really feel the difference and you can feel the difference
is by comparing you to a voiceless consonant.
So, for example: a Z is there is a voiced consonant and if you out your fingers here
just on your larynx and make that sound ‘zzz… zzz…’ then you should be able to feel
that there is a buzz against your fingers and it's because your vocal folds are coming
together and the vocal folds are turning the breath into vibration.
So we would call that a voiced consonant.
Whereas a voiceless consonant is a sound like an S. And again if you put your fingers here
on your larynx and say S, ‘sss… sss…’ then by comparison there is very little happening
behind your fingers.
In fact we shouldn't really feel anything.
It's just the breath that passes up.
So that’s a voiceless consonant.
And there are many of those sorts of pairs.
If you didn't feel that another way to do it is to put your fingers in your ears - so
put both of your fingers in bot of your ears and again if you say ‘zzz’ and ‘sss’
you should feel that on the Z there's a sense that inside your head and inside your throat
there is a buzzing but on the S there's nothing but breath.
So that's the difference between a voiced and a voiceless consonant.
And there are many voiced consonants, so have a look at this end and have a go:
Z ‘zoo’ V ‘vat’ TH ‘this’ B ‘bat’ D ‘doe’ G ‘goat’ ZH ‘measure’
DG ‘judge’ R ‘row’ W ‘woe’ Y (YOD) ‘yes’ L ‘low’ M ‘mow’ N ‘no’
NG ‘song’.
S a voiced consonant is made by bringing your vocal falls together to create vibration and
you can feel that either by putting your hand on your larynx or by putting your fingers
in your ears.
And using a voiced consonant in the right way and the right words can make a big difference
in terms of people understanding in English.
So I hope you found that useful and don't forget to click like if you want to find this
video again easily.
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8:30 GMT (local London time).
And if you want to know more about correcting the most commonly mispronounced consonant
sounds then click on this link above and it’ll take you to my website where you can download
a free five-day audio course that gets to the heart of how to pronounce these commonly
mispronounced consonants.
And if you want to find out any more information about pronunciation and articulation and accent
and speaking in English and a confident and clear way to make sure that you visit my website
www.englishpronunciationroadmap.com, it’s in the description underneath this video and
I hope to see you next Tuesday at 8.30pm GMT.