TYPES OF SOUNDS

  • Consonant  - a sound made by partially or completely blocking air in the mouth with the teeth, tongue, or lips
  • Vowel - a sound made with an open mouth, with no air blocked by the teeth, tongue, or lips

WORDS TO DESCRIBE VOWELS

  • Back – made with your tongue pulled towards the back of your mouth 
  • Central – made with your tongue in the center of your mouth, not pulled forward or backward 
  • Diphthong – made by combining two vowels into one syllable
  • Front – made with your tongue pulled towards the front of your mouth and with your lips spread out 
  • High - made with your tongue raised near the roof of your mouth 
  • Lax  – made with a relaxed tongue 
  • Low – made with your tongue lowered in your mouth and with your jaw lowered 
  • Mid - made with your tongue in the middle of your mouth, neither raised nor lowered 
  • Reduced - changed to become an unstressed vowel, often Schwa (/ə/)
  • Round – made with the lips forming a circle 
  • Stressed - longer, louder, and higher-pitched than other vowels in a word
  • Tense – made with a tightened tongue 
  • Unstressed - shorter, quieter, and lower-pitched than the stressed vowel 

WORDS TO DESCRIBE CONSONANTS

  • Affricate – made by combining a stop consonant with a fricative consonant in the same part of the mouth 
  • Alveolar – made with the tip of your tongue touching your alveolar ridge (the hard part of the roof of your mouth behind your teeth) 
  • Bilabial  – made using both lips
  • Fricative – made by partially stopping the flow of air in your mouth but allowing some air to escape
  • Glide - pronounced like a vowel sound, but occurs at a syllable boundary next to a vowel
  • ​Glottal - made by blocking air in the vocal tract
  • Labiodental - made with your upper front teeth touching your lower lip
  • Liquid - made with your tongue near a specific place in the mouth, changing but not blocking the flow of air
  • Nasal - made with air flowing out through your nose, but not through your mouth
  • Palatal - made with the middle of your tongue touching your hard palate (the hard, bony place in the middle of the roof of your mouth)
  • Stop – made by completely stopping the flow of air in your mouth, then suddenly releasing the air
  • Velar – made with the back of your tongue touching your velum (the soft part of the back of the roof of your mouth) 
  • Voiced - made by vibrating the vocal cords
  • Voiceless - made without vibrating the vocal cords

OTHER WORDS

  • Consonant cluster - two or more consonants pronounced together in a syllable, without being separated by a vowel
  • Enunciate – pronounce clearly and distinctly
  • Syllable - a unit of sound that has one vowel, with or without consonants
  • Prefix - a unit of sound added to the beginning of a word, which changes the meaning of the word 
  • Suffix - a unit of sound added to the end of a word, which changes the meaning of the word
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