Voiced consonants is the subject of this week’s blog. Read on to find out what they are and how to distinguish them from unvoiced consonants.

What are voiced consonants?

Good question. They do what they say on the tin. They are the consonants which, when we say them, use our voice boxes to make a sound.

Place your hand flat against your adam’s apple area, gently pressing just enough so you can feel it. Say the sound G for girl.

You should feel movement and vibration.

What you can feel is your larynx creating a vibration which in turn makes a sound save. And that is what distinguishes them against unvoiced consonants, which are those consonants where you don’t create a sound from your larynx.

👧Girl
🐕Dog
💐Vase

All of those have that vibration. And this is really important when we are speaking because we need to give cues to those people who are listening for them to be sure about what we are saying.

Most of us have learned at some point a second language, even if it was only at school for a year or two. And if you can think back to that time when somebody said something to you in that second language, it took you a lot longer to recognise what the word was after they’d spoken.

In our own language, the time to process a sound and recognise a word is milliseconds. So it’s not noticeable. It is fluency.

If you are presenting a huge amount of information at one time, it is important to be clear so that people can understand what you are saying.

So next week we will look at unvoiced consonants