Thread: Describe English consonants for me

Can someone please list all the English consonant sounds with there phonetic descriptions please. Just consonants please, cos the vowels differ for accent.

I am learning the phonetic terms. I have tried these/ Can you check them:

B - Voiced bilabial plosive
P - Voiceless bilabial plosive
D - Voiced alveolar plosive
T - Voicless alveolar plosive
M - Voiced bilabial nasal
Z - Voiced alveolar frictive
S (see, sam) - Voiceless alveolar frictive
Zh (s in measure) - Voiced postalveolar frictive
Sh -Vvoiceless postalveolar frictive
Thin - Voiceless dental frictive
The - Voiced dental frictive

The only one I would change is your description for M. I don't exactly consider M to be a plosive, and you don't even mention the part about it being bilabial. I think "bilabial nasal" would be better. It's the M as in Ham.

Originally Posted by Darobat

The only one I would change is your description for M. I don't exactly consider M to be a plosive, and you don't even mention the part about it being bilabial. I think "bilabial nasal" would be better. It's the M as in Ham.

Yes, I cut 'n' paste the one from above and didn't change it right.
It can't be both nasal and plosive.

I am having trouble with H.

Is it a Glottal frictive. Voiceless?
And Glottal frictive but voiced would be Ukrainian Г?

Ya, voiced glottal fricative is h. I'm not sure about the Ukranian part, as I know absolutly nothing about Ukranian.

Originally Posted by Darobat

Ya, voiced glottal fricative is h. I'm not sure about the Ukranian part, as I know absolutly nothing about Ukranian.

Hmm, H seems voiceless to me.

Indeed it is. Sorry.

seems ok, but you left out two nasals, some fricatives, etc. Look here:

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedi ... Consonants


The terminology used "plosive" and "approximant" seem strangely used to me, but my phonetics schooling is about 30 years out of date, so maybe these are more recent terms.

OK, and now the Russian consonants please!

θ and

[quote=Jeff]θ and

[quote=TATY][quote=Jeff]θ and

[quote=scotcher][quote=TATY][quote=Jeff]θ and

TATY, that's bilabial fricative.

But - in your post above IMO you really mithed your chance to say

plathed between the teeth !!!

About your question -- do your own homework, answer it yourself - it's all on the internet.

Originally Posted by chaika

TATY, that's bilabial fricative.

But - in your post above IMO you really mithed your chance to say

plathed between the teeth !!!

About your question -- do your own homework, answer it yourself - it's all on the internet.

a voiced clitoral frictive

Clitoral? Mmmm....Typo?

Would Taty make a typo like that? Naaaah!

Consonant phonemes may be described according to the following prnicples: place of production (1) and manner of production (2).

(1) falls into: bilabial (b, p, m), labio-dental (f, v), interdental (voiced and unvoiced th), alveolar (t, d, n), velar (k, g, nasal n like in 'king'), glottal (h).

(2) falls into: occlusive (p, b, m, t, d, n, k, g, nasal n), occlusive-constricitve (sound like in 'chair', sound like in 'dodge'), constrictive. Constrictive also fall into fricatives (f, v, voiced and unvoiced th, s, z, sh, zh, h) and sonorants (w, l, r, j).

Sometimes w and j in initial position are called 'semi-vowels'.

The semivowels are better called approximants, as they behave as other consonants, not as vowels, in both English and Russian.