⟨ch⟩

Voiceless postalveolar fricative Voiceless velar plosive Voiceless postalveolar affricate Ch is an English consonant digraph consisting of the letters C and H. The default pronunciation is the unvoiced palato-alveolar affricate /ʧ/, commonly known as a ch sound, though it can also be an Unvoiced velar stop /k/ or a Unvoiced palato-alveolar sibilant /ʃ/.

Pronunciations

As /tʃ/

This is the default pronunciation.

• as “ch": approach - beach - chair - challenge - change - charity - cheap - check - chief - child - choice - choose - church - each - launch - lunch - much - purchase - reach - research - rich - search - speech - teacher - touch - which

This also forms part of the trigraph tch.

As /k/

These are mostly Greek loanwords where the Greek letter chi is transliterated as ch:

• anchor - architecture - archive - chaos - character - charisma - chemical - chemistry - choir - Christian - Christopher - chrome - echo - headache - mechanism - Michael - orchestra - psychology - stomach - technique - technology

NB: for the trigraph sch see sch.

As /ʃ/

Ch is pronounced like an unvoiced palato-alveolar sibilant /ʃ/ in many French loanwords derived from French.

• brochure - champagne - chauffeur - chef - Chicago - machine - Michelle - Michigan - moustacheBrE - mustacheAmE - parachute

Homophones: cache - cash

As /dʒ/

• sandwich: /ˈsænwɪtʃ, ˈsænwɪdʒ^BrE/
• spinach: /ˈspɪnɪtʃ, ˈspɪnɪdʒ^BrE/
• Greenwich /ˈgrɪnɪdʒ, ˈgrɪnɪtʃ, ˈgrenɪtʃ, ˈgrenɪdʒ/
• Norwich /ˈnɒrɪdʒ, ˈnɒrɪtʃ/

As /h/

• chutzpah (/ˈhʊtspə/ — alternatively /ˈxʊtspə/)

Silent ch

• silent ch: yacht /jɒt/

L1 difficulties

Spanish

Many Spanish speakers will pronounce “ch" just like in Spanish, i.e. /tʃ/. This is particularly true of /ʃ/ (as in champagne) because this sound does not exist in Spanish.