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Pronunciation exercises: /dʒ/ vs /ʒ/
Voiced postalveolar affricate Voiced postalveolar fricative
/dʒ/ is an affricate consonant; it can’t last long. /ʒ/ is a fricative consonant; this means it is possible to make it sound for a long time: /ʒʒʒ/. However, in normal speech /ʒ/ has a length similar to other consonants.
/ʒ/[edit | edit source]
If a word begins or ends with /ʒ/ then it must be a loanword or a foreign word. Also, most words that have /ʒ/ are enclosed in vowels.
Examples:
- equation - usually
- ending in “sion": conclusion - confusion - decision - division - occasion - provision - television - vision
- ending in “sual": usual - visual
- ending in “sure": exposure - measure - pleasure
Words derived from French: beige, genre, lingerie
/dʒ/[edit | edit source]
Since /ʒ/ normally doesn’t appear at the beginning or end of the word, we will concentrate on the sound in mid position.
At the beginning of the word: just, general
At the end of the word: change, edge
In the middle of the word:
- Between vowels: agent, budget, imagine, intelligence, manager, major, original, project, region, register, religious, reject
- Other cases: arrangement, dangerous, engineer, largely, management, passenger
/dʒ/ vs /ʒ/[edit | edit source]
There are very few minimal pairs /dʒ/ vs /ʒ/.
- pledger (someone who pledges) - pleasure; legion - lesion;
Only in Received Pronunciation
- ledger - leisure
Only in American English
- jock - Jacques
- virgin - version
Variant pronunciations[edit | edit source]
Some words of French origin can be pronounced with /dʒ/ in addition to the original /ʒ/.
- garage
Spanish L1[edit | edit source]
See IPA phoneme /ʒ/ § Spanish.
References[edit | edit source]