How to pronounce the CH sound /tʃ/
/tʃ/ is a voiceless consonant made at just behind the ridge (postalveolar). Press the blade of your tongue against the ridge behind your top teeth, as for T. Round your lips slightly and hold the air.
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How to make it
- 1Press the blade of your tongue against the ridge behind your top teeth, as for T.
- 2Round your lips slightly and hold the air.
- 3Release into an SH instead of a clean puff — the stop and the hush are one movement.
- 4Keep the voice off; CH is the voiceless twin of J.
- Lips
- Pushed forward and slightly rounded.
- Tongue
- Blade stops against the ridge, then drops into the SH position.
- Jaw
- Nearly closed.
Feel it
Put a hand flat on your throat and say the sound. You should feel nothing at all until the vowel begins — any buzz means you have switched the voice on too early and made the voiced partner instead.Where the sound appears
Keeping it through a whole line
The teacher chose cheese and chips for lunch.
Watch the child reach the kitchen chair.
Minimal pairs to drill
Each of these is two words separated by exactly one sound. If a listener hears the wrong one, the problem is the contrast, not the effort.
If your first language is…
Nothing here is about ability. Every one of these is a sound system doing exactly what it was built to do, applied to a language that asks for something else.
- HindiUrdu
Hindi and Urdu have both an unaspirated and an aspirated ch, and the unaspirated one is the default, so English CH can sound like J at the start of a word.
- Mandarin
Mandarin has two ch-type affricates, one retroflex and one palatal, and the retroflex one makes English CH sound darker.
- Japanese
Japanese has ch, but only before i and certain vowels, so 'chair' and 'chocolate' need it in new positions; a final CH also needs the release held.
- Korean
Korean has an aspirated and a plain ch sorted by tension rather than voicing, so CH and J blur at the start of a word.
- Vietnamese
Vietnamese ch is a palatal stop with no hush, so English CH loses its SH release.
- Thai
Thai has a ch, but a final CH becomes an unreleased t, so 'watch' can sound cut short.
- Spanish
Spanish has ch, so it is available; the difficulty is that Spanish has no /ʃ/, so CH often replaces SH too.
- Portuguese
European Portuguese uses /ʃ/ for ch, so the stop at the front is missing; Brazilian Portuguese has the affricate in 'tia', which helps.
- French
French has no ch affricate — the letters ch spell /ʃ/ — so 'cheap' comes out as 'sheep'.
- German
German has the affricate only in loanwords, so /ʃ/ often stands in and 'much' ends like 'mush'.
- Italian
Italian has this sound spelled c before i and e, so it is secure; the spelling trap is that Italian ch spells /k/.
- Arabic
Many Arabic varieties have no ch, so /ʃ/ replaces it and 'chair' becomes 'share'.
Straight answers
Is /tʃ/ voiced or voiceless?
It is voiceless. Put a hand on your throat: you should feel nothing until the vowel after it starts. That is the only difference between it and its partner sound, which is made in exactly the same place.
What words start with the CH sound?
Common ones include chair, cheese, child. In the middle of a word you get teacher, kitchen, picture, and at the end watch, much, beach. Every one of those links to its own pronunciation page here.
How is /tʃ/ spelled in English?
It is written "ch", "tch", "t", "tu", "ti". English spelling and English sound came apart centuries ago, so the same sound turns up under several spellings and the same spelling carries several sounds — which is why the sound, not the letter, is the thing to learn.
Why do Hindi & Urdu speakers find /tʃ/ hard?
Hindi and Urdu have both an unaspirated and an aspirated ch, and the unaspirated one is the default, so English CH can sound like J at the start of a word.
Record the CH sound and see if it landed
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