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⟨ch⟩
⟨ch⟩ is an English consonant digraph consisting of the letters C and H. The default pronunciation is the ch phoneme /ʧ/, though it can also be an k phoneme /k/ or an sh phoneme /ʃ/.
Pronunciation[edit | edit source]
The three main pronunciations are Ch phoneme /tʃ/, K phoneme /k/ and Sh phoneme /ʃ/. Others are included below for completeness:
| Phoneme | Words | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ch phoneme /tʃ/ | approach, beach, chair, challenge, change, charity, Charles, cheap, check, chief, child, choice, choose, church, each, launch, lunch, much, purchase, reach, Rachel, research, rich, search, speech, teacher, touch, which | This is the default pronunciation. This also forms part of the trigraph ⟨tch⟩. |
| Dge phoneme /dʒ/ | This is a voiced alternative to /tʃ/ that may be applied to some words, especially place names. | |
| K phoneme /k/ | anchor, architecture, archive, chaos, character, charisma, chemical, chemistry, choir, Christ, Christian, Christmas, Christopher, chrome, echo, headache, mechanism, Michael, Munich, oche, orchestra, psychology, stomach, technique, technology | These are mostly (but not all) Greek derivations where the Greek letter chi is transliterated as ⟨ch⟩: |
| Phoneme /x/ | Bach, loch | This is a marginal phoneme, which can be used as an alternative to /k/ for these words. |
| Sh phoneme /ʃ/ | brochure, champagne, chandelier, chauffeur, chef, Chicago, cliché, fuchsia, machine, Michelle, Michigan, moustacheBrE, mustacheAmE, parachute | Mainly French-to-English loans. |
| Either H phoneme /h/ or phoneme /x/ | chutzpah, Chanukah | Yiddish-to-English loans. |
| Silent ⟨ch⟩: yacht /jɒt/. | This one is plain odd. ⟨ach⟩. |
Pedagogy[edit | edit source]
CH says Ch phoneme /ʧ/ is commonly taught as part of phonics education. Many words that are not the standard pronunciation often have to be learnt as sightwords. These include chef, psychologist, etc.
French EFL learners should have fewer problems with the French loanwords.
The alternative of the dge phoneme /dʒ/ for some words is not worth spending any time on.
