Day 2 - The 'S' and 'Z' Sound - 30 Day Pronunciation Challenge

DAY TWO
30-Day Pronunciation Challenge Playlist:
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TRANSCRIPT
Hello folks, my name’s Matt and I’m from VoiceHacker. This is the 30-day pronunciation challenge - we’re aiming for a British accent just like mine in 29 days’ time. We’re looking at the S and Z sounds today - let’s get started.
So, hello again! We’re looking at the S and Z today. Both of these sounds can be pronounced strangely in different accents, and even native British speakers can be unsure of the pronunciation. It can sometimes be a sound that we lisp quite heavily on - and even the pronunciation of that word can be dangerous.
Just like the TH sounds on day one, the S and Z are unvoiced and voiced pairs. On the ‘S’ you’ll feel no vibration, but Z is a voiced one. Let’s actually start with the Z pronunciation, as it can be quite surprising. ‘As’ is actually pronounced with a ‘Z’ - even though it’s written with an ‘S’, the pronunciation is with a ‘Z’. It’s voiced. Same as busy. Not all of the ‘z’ sounds are written with a ‘z’. Cause, Confuse, Always. You feel that all of the ‘z’ sounds are hidden here - not written with an ‘s’.
Sometimes, the ‘S’ sound is written with a ‘C’. It’s all messed up! Answer, Ask. You get the idea. They’re kind of confusing, these sounds. We’ve got the voiced and unvoiced version of them. So far, so TH. They’re all fricatives, in our fricative pronunciation section with the F, H, and TH sound. But the thing that separates them is where they’re placed. For instance, if you make me a SH sound, you’ll feel that the SH pronunciation happens a bit further back in the mouth. If you take your finger and place it inside your mouth, and just find out where the gums are for me. (barely audible). You’ll feel that in that area right there, there’s a ridge. Do you feel the ridge when you do that?
That little ridge is called the alveolar ridge. A lot of sounds happen there. The L pronunciation happens by tapping the ridge. The d sound happens there. The S sound, instead of touching the alveolar ridge, it creates vibration near the ridge. Fricking cars going by again. S, S, S. And you sort of feel it there, when you pronounce that sound. If you make that sound too far back, you make a ‘Sh’ ‘Sh’ sound. That’s a palato-alveolar fricative - pronounced on the hard palate, not the alveolar ridge. Whereas the pronunciation of the S sound happens right on the alveolar ridge.
This doesn’t mean the tip of the tongue touches it by the way. The tip of the tongue may dip down by where the bottom teeth are, or it may stay up by the top. It’s the blade of the tongue that does the work in the pronunciation: not quite the tip, but just behind. So in this ‘accept’ word, see if you can feel the vibration on the alveolar ridge itself.
There’s also the danger of turning it into a Spanish accent, into ‘acthept’. In other words, turning the pronunciation into that of a TH sound. That’s when it goes too far forward. It can also be in danger of being whistly when it goes that way. So if you pull the sound back a bit - allow the resonance of the pronunciation to be a little bit darker. Let’s do some words on this.
The ‘z’ sound is almost totally identical, it just has this little bit of buzz. And yeah, by the way, ‘cause’ - the only way you can differentiate it from the pronunciation of ‘course’ is just by the s and the z sound. They’re really really important.

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