Today follows on from last week, so if you didn’t listen to that one, please do first. Last week we talked about the voiceless and voiced consonant pair: /ʃ/ and /ʒ/, and today we’re looking at the voiceless and voiced consonant pair /ʧ/ and /ʤ/.
So, as the symbols suggest, these are a combination of the voiceless /t/ and the /ʃ/ sound, or the voiced /d/ and /ʒ/ sounds. To make them, start with the first sound and then move straight into the second. We’ve looked at these sounds individually before, so please go back to the /t/ and /d/ episode from season 1, or last week’s on /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ if you need to.
Let’s look at some common words with each sound. Listen, and repeat.
/ʧ/
1. achieve
2. adventure
3. century
4. change
5. cheese
6. each
7. future
8. kitchen
9. match
10. natural
11. picture
12. question
13. situation
14. teacher
15. Tuesday
16. watch
Let’s do three sentences with those sounds:
1. It was a century of change and adventure.
2. I’d love my future kitchen to match this picture.
3. It was a natural question to ask the teacher in the situation
It’s also worth noting that, just as we saw with ‘st’ making a /ʃ/ for some speakers in some positions last week (the example I gave was ‘students’), some speakers will make a /tʃr/ sound with a ‘tr’ cluster, e.g. in ‘trousers’ or ‘treasure’. As I said last week, this isn’t something you need to try and do, because it does simply vary from speaker to speaker, but if you notice that you *do* do it, that’s fine!
Ok, let’s move onto some words with /ʤ/ As usual with these voiced sounds, you will hear some devoicing when the sound is at the end of the word; it’s just important that you are at least voicing it at the beginning of the sound.
1. advantage
2. during
3. enjoy
4. gym
5. imagine
6. jacket
7. job
8. just
9. language
10. message
11. object
12. project
13. subject
14. teenager
15. vegetable
16. village
And again, three sentences with these words:
I just need a jacket for the job.The project’s subject is messages in languages.The village’s teenagers imagined enjoying the gym.A final note is that, particularly in faster speech, ‘dr’ clusters can also become /ʤ/ for some speakers, e.g. “drug”.
Minimal pairs with /ʧ/ and /ʤ/.
There are quite a few minimal pairs with /ʧ/ and /ʤ/, and as usual it’s a great way to practise the distinction between them.
Listen and repeat, really focussing on differentiating between the sounds. As usual, you’ll notice that vowel sounds are slightly elongated before the voiced /ʤ/, and that where the voiced /ʤ/ is at the end of the word, that it is devoiced at the point at which my vocal cords stop vibrating (but, importantly, is voiced at the beginning). These are small differences, but ones which will make quite a difference to how “English from England” your pronunciation sounds.
The first minimal pairs have /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ at the beginning of the word. There’s some higher level vocabulary in here, so look at the script (on my Patreon) and get your dictionary out if you need to!
cheap jeepchoose Jewscheer jeerchest jestchin ginchore jawchoke jokeWell done. This time, I’ll read the /ʧ/ word. Can you give the /ʤ/ word?
…And this time, I’ll read the /ʤ/ word. Can you read the /ʧ/word?
The next have /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ at the end of the word.
batch badgebotch bodgeperch purgerich ridgesearch surgelunch lunge larch largeWell done. This time, I’ll read the /ʧ/ word. Can you give the /ʤ/ word?
…And this time, I’ll read the /ʤ/ word. Can you read the /ʧ/word?
And finally, let’s try three sentences with those minimal pairs.
We just got a new batch of badges.It was no joke when he choked.They were perched on a large larch, cheering and jeering.And, as always, it would be a great idea for you to go back to these sounds and make your own sentences, particularly ones which mix the voiceless and voiced sounds, which we haven’t done a lot of today.