Yeti on a Jetty - the /j/ and /dʒ/ sounds in English

Welcome to season 3 of English Sound Building! Today, we're revisiting the /ʤ/ sound we looked at last season, and contrasting it with /j/. We’re looking at the sounds in words, minimal pairs, and sentences.

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Transcript

So this week, we’re revisiting the /ʤ/ sound that we first looked at last season in the “Cheering and Jeering” episode, but this time we’re contrasting it with the /j/ sound. This can be a tricky contrast for speakers of some languages, and can result in the sounds being treated as interchangeable. 

To make the /ʤ/ sound, start with your voice. As soon as you start vibrating the vocal cords, make the /d/ sound, placing the blade of your tongue against the alveolar ridge, and follow it immediately with the /ʒ/ sound, where the blad of your tongue leaves the alveolar ridge, but in the same movement the sides of your tongue press against the insides of the upper side teeth, and the middle of your tongue tenses and rises up to come closer to the hard palate. Your lips are likely to slightly flare at this point, too. 

Let’s review a few of the common words with /ʤ/

1.       during

2.       enjoy

3.       gym

4.       imagine

5.       job

6.       language

7.       project

8.       teenager

…And one long sentence!

The teenager enjoyed imagining her language project during her job at the gym.

The /j/ sound is made by the centre of the tongue close to – but not touching – the hard palate, while vibrating the vocal cords. The sides of the tongue will touch the upper side teeth here. It’s an approximant sound, which means that it comes close to producing friction, but doesn’t quite get there. Again, playing with your tongue and jaw position will help here if you’re not quite getting it. At the end of the sound, the tongue is lowered again to make the following vowel sound – the exact position the tongue will fall into will depend on that vowel: feel the difference between “ye”, “yai”, “yo”, “ya”.

Common words with /j/ in British English

This time, try not to allow the blade of the tongue to brush (and certainly not touch) the alveolar ridge. The sides of the tongue will touch the upper back teeth. 

Not all sounds will have the /j/ in your accent. Feel free to delete those ones from the list!

1.       beautiful

2.       computer

3.       few

4.       future

5.       human

6.       interview

7.       menu

8.       museum

9.       newspaper

10.   student

11.   university

12.   use

13.   usually

14.   view

15.   year

16.   yellow

17.   yesterday

18.   young

19.   yourself

Practise three sentences with these words:

• I read your yearly museum newspaper yesterday. 
• I usually use beautiful yellow menus.
• The student was interviewed by computer on Tuesday.

Minimal pairs with /ʤ/ and /j/.

Let’s look at some minimal pairs with /ʤ/ and /j/ at the beginnings of words. 

We’ll read the first four together.

1.       jaw - your

2.       jam - yam

3.       jewel - you’ll

4.       juice - use

For the next four, I’ll read the /ʤ/ word and I’d like you to read both. We’ll do the first one together as an example.

1.       jeer                      

2.       jet                        

3.       jot                        

4.       gell                       

Now listen and repeat to check how you did.

1.       jeer - year

2.       jet - yet

3.       jot - yacht

4.       gell - yell

For the final four, I’ll read the /j/ word and I’d like you to read both.

1.       yak

2.       use

3.       yeti

4.       yolk

Now listen and repeat to check how you did.

1.       yak  - Jack

2.       use – dues/ Jews

3.       yeti - jetty

4.       yolk - joke

And finally, just three sentences with a combination of those words.

1. Jack joked he saw a yeti on the jetty.
2. They jeered and yelled at the yacht.
3. You’ll use juice and jam, not yams.