Hi everyone! We’ve just had a brilliant Bournemouth Air Show weekend, with a great view of the Red Arrows from the Cliffs near to ETC. Anyway, let’s get back down to earth and continue our journey into English pronunciation land. So far, we’ve passed through the enchanted forest of long and short vowels, tackled the swamp of diphthongs, climbed the mountains of consonants (voiced and unvoiced) and today have arrived at Affricate Harbour, the place where two consonant sounds begin as plosives and end as fricatives.
The two sounds in question are /ʧ/ as in ‘cherry’ /ʧerɪ/ and /ʤ/ as in Jerry /ʤerɪ/. Once again you can see the voiced, unvoiced distinction.
My name is John, /ʤɒn/, as you know, but maybe what you didn’t know was that I have Austrian relatives. The sound /ʤ/, ironically, doesn’t exist in German, so my Austrian relatives substitute with the sound /ʧ/, which is the nearest equivalent. I am therefore /ʧɒn/. Other interesting words containing affricates are ‘cheering’ and ‘jeering’, and my friend Jilly who often sounds a bit cold! Until next week. Cheers! /ʧɪəz/
John's English Blog 