© Paul Smit 2006-2020
This is a common minimal pair problem for Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese speakers among others.
To make the /ʃ/ sound as in shoes, the tongue floats below the roof of your mouth, while you push out both lips and exhale. It’s a gentle sound.
To make the /ʧ/sound as in choose, touch the roof of your mouth briefly just behind your top teeth, to block air. Then drop your tongue to release air while pointing your lips out. This sound is a violent sound.
Practice exercise: Listen to the audio files, focusing on the different sounds for /ʃ/ and /ʧ/. When you feel confident that you can make the two sounds, practice the word pairs.
| shoes | choose | |
| ship | chip | |
| wish | which | |
| share | chair | |
| wash | watch | |
| cash | catch | |
| dish | ditch | |
| sheet | cheat | |
| shear | cheer | |
| mush | much |
© Paul Smit 2006-2020
Exercise 2: Listening and distinguishing the sounds
This will help you learn to distinguish the two sounds.
- Listen to the recording.
- Choose the word you hear.
- You can listen as many times as you want.
- Click the blue > arrow on the bottom right to move to the next question.
Exercise 3 – Tongue twister
Listen to practice the following tongue twister, focusing on pronouncing the /ʃ/ and /ʧ/ sounds correctly.
Cherry and Sherry shop for chops and shoes.
Will Sherry choose chops and Cherry shoes?
Or Cherry choose chops and Sherry shoes?
© Paul Smit 2006-2020
Exercise 4: Listen to the sentences and choose the sentence you hear.
© Paul Smit 2006-2020
Exercise 5: Play bingo with the /ʃ/ and /ʧ/ vowel sounds.
Instructions:
- Listen to each recording
- Choose the option with the same words in the same order as the recording
© Paul Smit 2006-2020