Practice question · Match the pairs
Match each phoneme to a notable fact about it.
- The ng of sing
- English /r/
- The zh of measure
- The two th sounds
- Among the rarest consonants in the world's languages
- The rarest English consonant, largely from French loans
- An approximant where most languages have a trill or tap
- Never begins an English word
Hints
- Two facts are about distribution within English and two about cross-linguistic rarity.
- The sound that cannot begin a word is the velar nasal.
Show the answer
- The ng of sing → Never begins an English word
- English /r/ → An approximant where most languages have a trill or tap
- The zh of measure → The rarest English consonant, largely from French loans
- The two th sounds → Among the rarest consonants in the world's languages
Why
These four are the marked members of the English inventory, and each is marked in a different way, distributionally restricted, typologically unusual, historically borrowed, or globally rare. They are also, unsurprisingly, the four that cause learners the most trouble.
Practise English Consonants II: the Rest, and Allophony
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Languages I is free to start.
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