Manner of Articulation

In phonetic mimic method

Quick Navigation
Nasal
Stop
Fricative
Affricate
Approximant
Lateral

Do you notice how I keep using the terms constriction and obstruction? I do

this because there are many ways to make the air flow through your oral

passage.

For example, you can squeeze the back of your tongue against your velum to

block the airflow. Or you can lightly touch that same place and let some air

pass through.

Although both of these motions occur at the same place, they make different

sounds because of the manner of articulation. This is part of the reason it is

possible to have so many distinct consonant sounds at the same place of

articulation.

The manner of articulation is the way the airstream is affected as it flows

from the lungs and out the nose and mouth.

On this page I will cover six different manners of articulation in English that will

distinguish one consonant sound from the next. There is a lot of information

on this page, so don’t worry if you can’t remember everything now. You can

always bookmark this page and refer back to it.

Looking at these sounds from a different perspective will help you develop

your physical awareness of them. Make sure to try these movements out

loud to yourself to really feel them.

Nasal
Nasal consonants are created when you completely block air flow through

your mouth and let the air pass through your nose.

There are three nasal consonants in English.

 /m/ – “mad” and “clam” – oral passage is blocked by closing the lips
(bilabial).
 /n/ – “no” and “man‘ – oral passage is blocked by pressing tongue tip
against the alveolar ridge (alveolar).
 /ŋ/ – “going” and “funk” – Oral passage is blocked by pressing the the
back of your tongue against the soft palate (velar).

Stop
Like nasal consonants, stop consonants occur when the vocal tract is closed

completely. But for stops the airflow is NOT redirected through the nose.

Instead, the air quickly builds up pressure behind the articulators and then

releases in a burst.

English contains the following stop consonants.

 /p/ – purse and rap – oral passage is blocked by closing the lips (bilabial).
 /b/ – “back” and “cab” – oral passage is blocked by closing the lips
(bilabial).
 /t/ – “tab” and “rat” – oral passage is blocked by pressing the tongue tip
against the alveolar ridge (alveolar)
 /d/ – “dip” and “bad” – oral passage is blocked by pressing the tongue tip
against the alveolar ridge (alveolar)
 /k/ – “kite” and “back” – block airflow with the back of the tongue against
the soft palate (velar).
 /g/ – “good” and “bug” – block airflow with the back of the tongue against
the soft palate (velar).

Fricative
While nasal and stop consonants involve a complete blockage of the vocal

tract, fricative sounds involve only a partial blockage of the vocal tract so

that air has to be forced through a narrow channel.

For example, you create a /t/ stop consonant when you block airflow

completely with your tongue against the alveolar ridge. But if you let up with
the tongue a bit and let the air seep through, you make an

/s/ fricative consonant.

The English fricative sounds are as follows:

 /f/ – “fro” and “calf“- air is forced through the upper teeth and lower lip
(labiodental)
 /v/ – “vine” and “have” – air is forced through the upper teeth and lower lip
(labiodental)

 /θ/ – “thick” and “bath” – air is forced through upper teeth and tongue
(dental)
 /ð/ – “the” and “rather” – air is forced through upper teeth and tongue
(dental)

 /s/ – “suit” and “bus” – air is forced through tongue and alveolar ridge
(alveolar)
 /z/ – “zit” and “jazz” – air is forced through tongue and alveolar ridge
(alveolar)

 /ʃ/ – “shot” and “brash” – air is forced through the tongue and point just
beyond alveolar ridge (post-alveolar)
 /ʒ/ – “vision” and “measure” – air is forced through the tongue and point just
beyond alveolar ridge (post-alveolar)

 /h/ – “happy” and “hope” – actually /h/ isn’t a fricative. It’s technically not
even a real consonant sound since there’s no constriction/obstruction of
airflow.
Affricate
When stop consonants mix with fricative consonants, the result is

an affricate consonant. Affricate consonants start as stop sounds with air

building up behind an articulator which then releases through a narrow

channel as a fricative (instead of a clean burst as stops do).

The English affricate sounds are:

 /tʃ/ – “chick” and “match” – air is blocked with tongue just beyond the
alveolar ridge (post-alveolar), then released as a fricative.
 /dʒ/ – “jam” and “badge” – air is blocked with tongue just beyond the
alveolar ridge (post-alveolar), then released as a fricative.

Approximant
Approximants are when two articulators come close together but not

quite close enough to create air turbulence.

The resulting sound is more like a fast vowel than anything else. For example,

the /w/ approximant is like a fast /u/ sound (say /u/ + /aɪ/ really fast and you

get the word “why”). Notice how your tongue never actually comes in contact

with the top of your mouth.

There are three English approximants:

 /w/ – “wet” and “howard” – back of tongue raises to velum (but not too
close!) and lips are rounded (velar)
 /j/ – “yes” and “bayou” – tongue raises to hard palate (but not too close!)
(palatal)
 /ɹ/ – “right” and “roar” – tongue raises to hard palate (but not too close)
(alveolar/post-alveolar)

Lateral
Lateral consonants are when the tongue blocks the the middle of your mouth

so that air has to pass around the sides. You create this when you

There is one lateral consonant in English

 /l/ – “luck”- place the tip of the tongue at the alveolar ridge (alveolar)

You might want to return to this after you spend some more time thinking

about your English sounds and fidgeting around with your speech organ. So

feel free to bookmark these pages for further reference.

Why is this information important? Because these same phonetic

concepts are going to apply to your target language.

Your target language is going to have sounds that are completely new to you.
The best way for you to master the articulation of these new sounds is to

understand these basic concepts behind them.

Now that you can decipher place and manner of articulation, the last feature

we need to study is phonation.

===================================

Phonation
Quick Navigation
Phonation
Voiced vs. Voiceless
Phonation Pairs in English
Phonation in Your Target Language
In English
In Spanish
In French

Remember our old friend, the glottis?

The glottis is at the top of your windpipe and made up of two snotty folds of

mucous membrane known as the vocal cords. As mentioned before, these

vocal cords open up when you breathe to let air pass through.

When you contract the muscles in your throat to bring your vocal

cords together, they start to vibrate. The resulting sound is your voice! The

presence or absence of voicing is the third major defining feature of

consonants, and the technical term for it is phonation.

Voiced vs. Voiceless
 When your vocal cords are vibrating, the phonation of that consonant
is voiced.
 When your vocal cords are NOT vibrating, the phonation of that consonant
is voiceless.

Some pairs of consonant sounds already have the same place and manner of

articulation. In these cases, the phonation is what makes them different.

Phonation Pairs in English

Below, I list all the phonation pairs of English consonants. In these pairs, the

first consonant sound is voiceless while the second is voiced.

As you follow along, try to make these sounds out loud to feel the

difference.

[Bilabial] [Stop]

/p/ vs. /b/

“pat” vs. “bat”

[Velar] [Stop]

/k/ vs /g/

“card” vs. “guard”

[Dental] [Fricative]

/θ/ vs. /ð/

“thigh” vs. “thy”

[Interdental] [Fricative]

/f/ vs. /v/

“fat” vs. “vat”

[Alveolar] [Stop]

/t/ vs. /d/

“tire” vs. “dire”

[Alveolar] [Fricative]

/s/ vs. /z/

“sit” vs. “zit”

[Post-Alveolar] [Fricative]

/ʃ/ vs. /ʒ/

“fishin’” vs. “fission”

[Post-Alveolar] [Affricate]

/tʃ/ vs. /dʒ/

“batch” vs. “badge”

Phonation in Your Target Language
In some languages, the difference between a voiced and unvoiced consonant

results in a difference in meaning. In other languages, this is not the case. If

you are learning another language, you may not be able to hear the difference

initially.

But that’s just on the perception side. There is still a question of developing

the coordination needed to produce these sounds.

I have found that in general, students have more difficulty

producing voiced consonants in their target language.

This makes sense when you think about it, as the vibration of vocal cords

means voiced consonants need more coordination than voiceless ones.

IN ENGLISH
Imagine that you are a native Spanish speaker who is learning English. In

Spanish, there is the voiceless /s/, but its voiced equal /z/ does NOT yet exist

for that person. So the native Spanish will struggle at hearing the difference

between the words “zap” and “sap.” That’s part of the reason why native

Spanish speakers always tend to mispronounce these sounds in colloquial

English.
But as I have said before, anyone can learn to appreciate any sound with

enough targeted exposure. If the Spanish speaker practices

hearing “zap/sap”, “sit/zit”, “sag/zag” enough times, eventually they will start to

notice the difference.

Consonant Charts: the 3 in 1 Deal

Remember how useful the vowel chart was in making sense of the vowel

sounds of your target language? Well you’ll be happy to know that consonant

charts can be just as helpful (yay for charts!)

A consonant chart lists all of the consonant sounds for a given language

while neatly organizing them by place of articulation, manner of

articulation and phonation.

Below you will find a consonant chart of English containing all of the

phonemes we discussed. While reviewing the IPA symbols, take note of the

following:

 The columns are labeled by place or articulation.

 The rows are labeled by manner of articulation.
 When two consonants are next to each other in the same cell (i.e. they
share the same place and manner of articulation), the consonant on
the left is voiceless and the consonant on the right is voiced.

Modification of consonant chart on Wikipedia Article for “English Phonology”

Sometimes it can be confusing calling a consonant sound by its symbol,

especially for sounds like /ʃ/, whose name nobody remembers. So the best

way to call a consonant is to list its three features.

The convention for naming a consonant sound is as follows:

[phonation] [place of articulation] [manner of articulation]

So for example:

 The /f/ sound is called – voiceless labiodental fricative.

 The /ʒ/ sound (from vision) is called – voiced post-alveolar fricative
 The /p/ sound is called – voiceless bilabial stop

See? These big phonetic terms aren’t so scary once you break them

down. The IPA symbols are pretty simple to learn too once you isolate the

ones that are different from English writing:

 /θ/ – voiceless dental fricative – “th” sound from “theater” and “thick”
 /ð/ – voiced dental fricative – “th” sound from “then” and “rather”
 /ʃ/ – voiceless post-alveolar fricative – “sh” sound from “ship” and “ash”
 /ʒ/ – voiced post-alveolar fricative – “s” sound from “measure” and
“vision”
 /tʃ/ – voiceless post-alveolar affricate – “ch” sound from “child” and
“pouch”
 /dʒ/ – voiced post-alveolar affricate – “j” sound from “john” and “g” sound
from “vintage”
 /ŋ/ – velar nasal (voiced is redundant because all nasal sounds are voiced,
otherwise you’re just blowing snot-rockets out your nose). – “n” sound from
“going” and “flunk”.
 /?/ – glottal stop – dropped consonant sound from phrases like “wha(t)
time is it”

Also, there are a few other discrepancies between IPA and English writing

that may trip you up. I list them below:

 The /j/ (voiced palatal approximant) is usually represented in English with

the letter “y” in words such as “young” and “yard”. It is NOT sound that ‘j’
usually represents in English writing (the ‘j’ in “job” is actually a /dʒ/)
 The English letter ‘g’ is sometimes used to represent the /dʒ/ sound too, as
is the case with words like “gin” and “genuine”. Just remember that that
IPA symbol /g/ ALWAYS represents the voiced velar stop from words like
“guy” and “guilt”.
 The letter ‘c’ in English can be either /k/ sound as it is in “cat” and “car” or
an /s/ sound as it is in “cycle and “cinder”
 The letter ‘s’ in English is often used to represent the /z/ sound and NOT
the /s/, as is the case in words like “prison” and “chasm”

Remember when I told you how the English writing thing messes everything

up? Don’t let it mess up your understanding of the true nature of

sound. Trust in the IPA and the basic principles of naming consonants and

you won’t get confused when studying new languages.

Wrap-Up Exercise
For today’s wrap-up exercise, name each of the consonants below and list

one word (from any language) that contains this sound (try not to scroll up and

cheat).

1. /s/
2. /tʃ/
3. /n/
4. /ʃ/
5. /g/
Stay tuned for the next lesson, where we get more in depth on my method of

how to build up these sounds with Flow Training.