Pronounce English Accurately

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/sss/ and /zzzz/ are made in the exact same position as /t/ and /d/, on the alveolar ridge - you don't need to move your tongue at all - and both are fricative sounds.

The air is forced out through a very narrow gap, making friction noise.

The two sounds are identical except for voicing; /s/ is voiceless whereas /z/ is voiced.

With no voicing: /ssss/ With voicing: /zzz/.

So /s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative and /z/ is a voiced alveolar fricative.

/s/ and /z/ are both extremely common sounds in the world's languages and shouldn't in themselves be difficult to make, although the places they occur may be different in English from in other languages, and that may cause difficulties.

/s/ should never be substituted for /θ/, nor /z/ for /ð/.

/s/ and /z/ are alveolar fricatives

/θ/ and /ð/ are dental fricatives.

There are quite a few ways of spelling the /s/ sound.

/s/ is spelt 's' as in 'sand',

'ss' as in 'pass',

'c' before 'e', 'i', or 'y' as in 'cell', 'city', and 'cycle',

and 'sce-' and 'sci-' as in 'scent' and 'scissors'.

Here are example words with /s/ in initial, medial and final position.

First in initial position spelt with an 's':

'sand'

'sent'

'sow, sew'

'sort, sought'

'soup'

'soon'.

and in initial position spelt with a 'c' followed by an 'e', 'i' or 'y', the so-called 'soft c':

'city'

'cell'

'cycle'

'cent'

'celery'

With 'sce-' and 'sci-':

'scent'

'scissors'

'science, scientific, scientist'

'scene, scenic'

'scenario'

'scintillating'

And one with 'scy-':

'scythe'.

Now /s/ in medial position, usually spelt with 'ss':

'passive'

'assign'

'message'

'fossil'

'assess'

'assume'

Unusually, 'resize', with only one 's' in the middle is /s/ - because it's derived from 'size'.

Usually a single 's' in the middle would be /z/ as in 'resign' /rɪˈzaɪn/, 'result' /rɪˈzʌlt/,

Medial /s/ spelt with a 'c':

'acid'

'lucid'

'rancid'

'faces'

'racy'

And /s/ in final position, spelt with 's' or 'ss':

'pass'

'house'

'mouse'

and with 'ce':

'ace'

'race'

'pace'

'face'

'rice'

'nice'

'police'

and there are a host of other words spelt '-ce' at the end.

A very odd exception to the hard/soft 'c' rule is the word 'coeliac', which is pronounced /ˈsiː.li.æk/.

This is an extraordinary pronunciation and hard to explain, given that the word comes from Latin 'coeliacus' and that comes ultimately from Greek 'koiliakós' meaning 'to do with the bowels', and both of those started with a /k/ sound.

There's one word spelt 'sc' where the 'c' is silent when it doesn't look as though it should be: 'muscle' is /ˈmʌsəl/, with no /k/ sound, but 'muscular' is /sk/. 'Muscle' sounds exactly the same as 'mussel'.

There's quite a list of words ending in '-stle' in which the 't' is silent, giving just the /s/ sound:

'castle'

'rustle'

'hustle'

'bustle'

'whistle'

'gristle'

'apostle'

'epistle'

and some ending in '-sten':

'listen'

'hasten'

'glisten'

'christen'

See how many more words you can think of which are spelt 'st' but are pronounced /s/, with no /t/ sound.

Post them in the comments section for this lesson.

I have: 'jostle' 'fasten' 'moisten' 'apostle' 'epistle' 'thistle' 'whistle' 'wrestle'.

And also 'Christmas' in normal speech, although in very careful speech it can be pronounced /ˈkrɪst.məs/, whereas none of the ones above can ever have a /t/ sound in them.

/z/

/z/ is the voiced alveolar fricative, exactly the same as /s/ except the vocal folds are vibrating: [zzzz].

In initial position it will be spelt 'z', occasionally 'x' as in 'xylophone', but in other positions it will more often be spelt with 's'.

Examples of /z/ in initial position spelt 'z':

'zoo'

'zebra'

'zone'

'zinc'

'zip'

'zilch' - slang for 'nothing'

Spelt 'x':

'xylophone'

'xenophobia'

'xenon'

'Xavier'.

In medial position:

'noisy'

'nosy'

'present'

'desert, dessert'

'laser'

'razor'

'busy'

'lazy'

And in final position:

'cheese'

'nose'

'rise'

'rose'

As we saw before, it is extremely important to be able to make the distinction between voiced and voiceless final consonants clearly, as this distinguishes a very large number of words.

Many of these words are monosyllabic, only one syllable long, so if the final consonants are wrong and perhaps the vowel a little bit wrong too, there is nothing else for the listener to go on - they could be just about anything.

Examples are 'peg - pegs' - if the final consonants are not clearly voiced this could be 'peck - pecks' and if the vowel is a bit wrong too then it could be 'pick - picks' or 'pig - pigs' or just about anything.

So it is really very important to practice voiced final consonants, making the consonants weak and the preceding vowel long -

'peg - pegs'

'bag - bags'

'log - logs'

whereas with the voiceless final consonants the consonant is strong and the vowel clipped short:

'peck - pecks'

'back - backs'

'lock - locks'

I'll do the pronunciation of the 's' ending on nouns and verbs in the next lesson.

Practice sentences for /s/ and /z/:

Silky snakes bask in silence on the sun-kissed sand.

Horses race around the circuit as their trainers scoff biscuits and gossip.

Zorba zeroed in on the disastrous zygote and zapped it.

Brazilian bees buzzed busily around the barrels of bananas.

/s - z/