How to pronounce the S sound /s/
/s/ is a voiceless consonant made at ridge behind the teeth (alveolar). Bring your teeth close together, almost touching. Raise the tongue tip toward the ridge behind your top teeth and leave a tiny gap.
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How to make it
- 1Bring your teeth close together, almost touching.
- 2Raise the tongue tip toward the ridge behind your top teeth and leave a tiny gap.
- 3Push air down the groove in the middle of your tongue — you should hear a thin hiss.
- 4Keep the voice off; the hiss is all air.
- Lips
- Slightly spread, corners back.
- Tongue
- Tip near — not touching — the ridge, with a narrow groove down the middle.
- Jaw
- Almost closed; the teeth nearly meet.
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
Sam sits outside the small city bus stop.
It seems nicer to see the sun this Sunday.
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 S, so it is secure, but a word-initial s-plus-consonant cluster often gains a vowel in front, so 'school' becomes 'ischool'.
- Punjabi
Punjabi commonly adds a vowel before an initial sp-, st- or sk- cluster, so 'station' becomes 'istation'.
- Bengali
Bengali's main sibilant is a sh-type sound, so English S often comes out as 'sh' and 'sun' becomes 'shun'.
- Mandarin
Mandarin has s but no final consonants, so 'bus' and 'class' tend to lose the hiss at the end.
- Cantonese
Cantonese s is fine at the start, but Cantonese syllables cannot end in s, so final S needs holding.
- Japanese
Japanese s becomes 'sh' before i, so 'seat' and 'sit' can start with a hush.
- Korean
Korean s also palatalises before i, giving 'see' a sh-like start, and word-final s is not released.
- Vietnamese
Vietnamese has no final s, so plural and third-person endings are easily dropped.
- Thai
Thai allows s only at the start of a syllable, so a final S is commonly replaced by an unreleased t.
- Spanish
Spanish has no word-initial s-plus-consonant cluster, so 'Spain' gains an e in front; the S itself is fine.
- German
German pronounces an initial s before a vowel as /z/, so 'sun' can begin like 'zun', and initial sp-, st- become 'shp-', 'sht-'.
- Arabic
Arabic has both a plain and an emphatic s, and the emphatic one can colour the vowel after it, making 'seat' sound darker.
Straight answers
Is /s/ 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 S sound?
Common ones include sun, see, city. In the middle of a word you get listen, person, outside, and at the end bus, nice, class. Every one of those links to its own pronunciation page here.
How is /s/ spelled in English?
It is written "s", "ss", "c", "ce", "se", "sc", "ps". 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 /s/ hard?
Hindi and Urdu have S, so it is secure, but a word-initial s-plus-consonant cluster often gains a vowel in front, so 'school' becomes 'ischool'.
Record the S sound and see if it landed
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