The 'sh' and 'dj' Sounds

How to make this sound:

Video Text:

The sh and dj sounds are paired together becuase they have the same mouth position.  Sh is unvoiced, use only air to make the sound, and dj is voiced, use the vocal cords to make the sound.  The position:  the corners of the mouth come in ever-so-slightly, sh, which means the lips come out just a little bit.  Sh, dj.  The tongue:  the tongue rises, and the sides of the tongue press against the top teeth on the inside in the middle.  The tip of the tongue then is touching nothing.  It is behind the front teeth but not touching them.  Sh, dj.  So, to make this sound, you bring the tongue up and back a little bit, and fatten it a little bit so it can press up against the insides of the top teeth.  Sample word pairs:  I'll do them once slowly, and once at a normal pace.  Pressure, measure ... fish, decision ... gosh, mirage.

International Phonetic Alphabet symbols:  [], []

This is where IPA comes in handy.  It is so hard to represent the [] sound with text, I am glad the IPA came up with a symbol for it!  See Wikipedia's pages on the voiced and unvoiced sounds of this pair.

< previous sound | next sound >