Introduction to consonants

English consonants are deceptively similar to Spanish consonants. The letters are the same and
many of them are even represented by the same symbols in phonetics, but only just a few sound
the same. The rest are completely different. Fortunately for us, they are not very difficult to
learn. You can have a first look at them in Table 1. If you click on the symbol, you will hear the
sound and the examples.

To describe a consonant, we have to consider three elements: 1) manner of articulation (how the
sound is produced); 2) place of articulation (where it is produced); and 3) voicing (if they are
voiced or voiceless).

NB: When symbols are arranged in pairs, they follow the order voiceless – voiced (e.g. p:
voiceless / b: voiced)

Manner of articulation

Consonants differ from vowels in that the airflow cannot escape the mouth freely but has to
overcome an obstacle. The specific noise that characterizes each consonant is generated in this
way. So, in order to analyze a consonant, one of the parameters we have to know is which kind
of obstruction is presented to the airflow. This is what constitutes its manner of articulation.

Plosive: There is a complete closure at one point of the vocal tract that prevents the air from
passing. The air builds up in the space behind that obstruction and then is suddenly released,
which causes a small explosion accompanied by a distinctive noise. Depending on its place of
articulation, the blockage can be of three different types: bilabial (both lips together, /p/, /b/),
alveolar (blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, /t/, /d/) and velar (back of the tongue
against the soft palate, /k/, /g/). If you go to Table 1, on the top line you can hear the six English
plosives plus the two affricates (they are placed there because affricates start as plosives, as you
will see below).

Fricative: The air is forced through a narrow passage, causing a hissing noise. This is because
one articulator (e.g. the tongue) comes close enough to another (e.g. the teeth) for the sound to be
produced. It is what happens when you say think /θɪŋk/, for instance, for which you use the
dental fricative /θ/. This is the same sound you produce when you say the Spanish word zapato
(in peninsular Spanish, not in the Spanish spoken in Latin America). Unlike plosives, fricatives
can be produced continuously, that is, you can say /θ/, /s/, /f/, etc. for as long as you have enough
breath.

Affricate: This is a mixed sound. It starts as a plosive, with a complete closure, and continues as
a fricative, because the air is released more slowly than in plosives. The two affricate sounds in
English are the voiceless /ʧ/ (China /ˈʧaɪnə/, exactly the same as in Spanish) and the voiced /ʤ/
(judge /ʤʌʤ/), which doesn’t have so clear an equivalent in Spanish and tends to be more
troublesome (but you can learn how to do it here). As you see, the fact that they are represented
by double symbols reflects their hybrid nature.

Nasal: A complete closure is made in some part of the vocal cavity, but the air escapes through
the nose. There are three nasal consonants in English depending on the place where the blockage
occurs: the bilabial /m/ (mother, the same sound used to say madre in Spanish), the alveolar /n/
(nose, as in the Spanish word nariz) and the velar /ŋ/ (as in sing), which is a bit more difficult to
say correctly (learn how to do it here).

Lateral: The tongue is pressed against the alveolar ridge, so there is an obstruction to the airflow
in the centre and the air escapes along the sides of the tongue. The English lateral consonant is /l/
(long, as in the Spanish word largo). It is produced as a Spanish l when the next sound is a
vowel, but when it’s followed by a consonant or a pause (well, gild) it is different. Learn about it
here.

Approximant: Here the two articulators come close to one another but not so much as to cause
any friction. English approximants are /w/ (well), /r/ (red) and /j/ (you). To a certain extent, they
resemble vowels. Actually, /w/ and /j/ are also called semivowels because of their similarity to/u/
and /i/.

Place of articulation

This is the location where the obstruction to the airflow occurs along the vocal tract. Notice that
the different places of articulation are described in a backward movement beginning in the lips
and ending in the velum. So each place is a little farther back in the mouth than the previous one.

Bilabial: The two lips come together (/p, b, m/).

Labio-dental: The lower lip touches the upper teeth (/f, v/).

Dental: The tongue is placed either between the teeth or against the back of the upper teeth (/θ,
ð/).

Alveolar: The tongue is level with the alveolar ridge, which is the hard area above the top front
teeth. /t/, /d/, /n/ and /l/ are placed against it, which means that the two surfaces touch. In the case
of /s/ and /z/, the tongue is very close to the alveolar ridge, but without making actual contact.

Post-alveolar: The tongue is placed just behind the alveolar ridge (/ʧ, ʤ, ʃ, ʒ, r/).

Palatal: The tongue is raised against the hard palate, that is, the middle part of the roof of the
mouth (/j/).
Velar: The back of the tongue articulates with the soft palate, which is situated at the back of the
mouth (/k/, /g/, /ŋ/).

Glottal: An audible friction is produced between the vocal folds, but without vocal fold
vibration (/h/).

Labio-velar: There are two simultaneous constrictions: an open approximation at the lips and
an open approximation at the velum. This is called double articulation (/w/).

Voicing

Consonants can be accompanied by vocal fold vibration or not, so they are said to be voiced, in
the first case, or voiceless, in the second. You can check the voicing of each consonant in Table
1, where they are organized in two different colours.

All the voiceless phonemes, except for the /h/, have a voiced counterpart. This means that they
share place and manner of articulation but differ in voicing. In other words, they are the same
sound except for the fact that in one case the vocal folds vibrate and in the other they don’t. This
can be seen in Table 2. Whenever the phonemes are arranged in pairs, they follow the order
voiceless-voiced. The phonemes that stand alone are all voiced except for the /h/.

However, you can easily find out for yourself the voicing of a consonant. Place your fingers
against your throat while producing a sound and you’ll be able to feel whether your vocal folds
vibrate or not.

If you want to practice, the fricative pairs are wonderful, since they can be done continuously.
Have a look at this little exercise:

From /s/ to /z/ sound_loud_speaker: As you can see, the sound begins as an /s/ (voiceless), but
at some point the vocal folds start vibrating and it becomes an /z/ (voiced).

In actual words, the difference can be exemplified by the following minimal pair:

sound_loud_speaker Seal /siːl/ sound_loud_speaker Zeal /ziːl/

This is the type of work I do with my students in my one-to-one classes. I make them practise
these processes with exercises until they improve their comprehension of native speakers and are
capable of speaking like that themselves. If you are interested in my classes, you can contact me
here.

Devoicing of final consonants: As English pronunciation is seldom simple, we have to deal

with an additional element: the devoicing of final consonants. This is a rather complicated issue.
But don’t worry. Read this explanation, and it’ll become crystal clear to you.
Voiced consonants which have a voiceless counterpart -that is, plosives, fricatives and affricates-
tend to lose their voicing when they are placed at the end of words and followed by a silence or a
voiceless sound. In other words, they are produced without vocal fold vibration when they are
said before a voiceless consonant or are the last word in an utterance. This loss can be partial or
total, depending on the context, speaker, etc., but generally it is very noticeable.

Now, logically, if a voiced consonant loses its voicing, it would sound very similar to its
voiceless counterpart: /d/ would sound like /t/; /z/ like /s/; /g/ like /k/; /v/ like /f/, etc. And it
stands to reason that this process would make English more difficult to understand.

We find the clearest example of this problem in minimal pairs. The question is: how are we
going to distinguish pairs of words which differ only in that single element, a final consonant, if
that consonant loses its voicing and becomes similar to its counterpart? Of course we have all the
information provided by context, but there is another clue.

NB:

1. /g/ and /k/ sound very similar, almost identical. And the /g/ sound is clearly different from the
one we do in Spanish (we would use a fully voiced /g/, like this sound loud_speaker). Actually,
an English /g/ is much closer to an Spanish/k/ than to a Spanish /g/.

2. The /æ/ sound in bag is longer than the /æ/ sound in back, even though the vowel is the same:
/bæg/ sound_loud_speaker – /bæk/ sound_loud_speaker.

The second point, the length of the previous vowel, is the crucial element to distinguish bag
from back. It is due to a phenomenon called pre-fortis clipping whereby vowels become shorter
if they are followed by voiceless consonants. On the contrary, voiced vowels retain their proper
length even if they are devoiced. So, strange though it may seem, native speakers don’t
distinguish these kinds of pairs by the voicing of the consonant -that is to say, because it is a /k/
or a /g/- since this difference tends to be so small that it’s almost always neutralized. The key
element to tell the difference between those words is the length of the preceding vowel.