How to pronounce the Z sound /z/
/z/ is a voiced consonant made at ridge behind the teeth (alveolar). Set your mouth exactly as for S: teeth close, tongue grooved near the ridge. Turn the voice on — the hiss becomes a buzz you can feel in your throat.
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How to make it
- 1Set your mouth exactly as for S: teeth close, tongue grooved near the ridge.
- 2Turn the voice on — the hiss becomes a buzz you can feel in your throat.
- 3Hold it for a second to check it is really voiced, then release into the vowel.
- 4Most English plurals after a voiced sound are Z, not S: 'dogs', 'cars', 'eyes'.
- Lips
- Slightly spread.
- Tongue
- Tip near the ridge with a narrow groove — the same shape as S.
- Jaw
- Almost closed.
Feel it
Put a hand flat on your throat and say the sound. It should buzz under your fingers from the very start — if the buzz only arrives with the vowel, you are making the voiceless version.Where the sound appears
Keeping it through a whole line
The busy zoo closes at zero degrees.
His eyes were easy to please because of the music.
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
Urdu has z securely; in many Hindi varieties it merges with /dʒ/, so 'zoo' can begin like 'joo'.
- Bengali
Bengali has no z, so /dʒ/ usually replaces it and 'zero' starts like 'jero'.
- Gujarati
Gujarati often replaces z with /dʒ/, so 'busy' can sound like 'budgy'.
- Tamil
Tamil has no z, so /s/ is the usual substitute and 'eyes' ends like 'ice'.
- Telugu
Telugu substitutes /dʒ/ or /s/, so the buzz at the end of plurals is easy to lose.
- Mandarin
Mandarin has no final consonants, so the z that carries most English plurals disappears.
- Cantonese
Cantonese has no z, so it is replaced by an unaspirated ts and the buzz is lost.
- Japanese
Japanese has z, but not at the end of a word, so 'because' tends to gain a vowel or lose the buzz.
- Korean
Korean has no z, so /dʒ/ or /s/ stands in and the voiced hiss has to be built.
- Thai
Thai has no z, so /s/ replaces it everywhere and the plural buzz vanishes.
- Spanish
Spanish has no z sound at all — the letter z is pronounced /s/ or /θ/ — so 'rise' comes out as 'rice'.
- German
German devoices final consonants, so 'eyes' and 'ice' end the same way.
Straight answers
Is /z/ voiced or voiceless?
It is voiced. Put a hand on your throat and say it: you should feel a buzz the whole time. Every English vowel is voiced too, so the buzz never stops between this sound and the vowel next to it.
What words start with the Z sound?
Common ones include zoo, zero, zip. In the middle of a word you get busy, music, reason, and at the end buzz, eyes, because. Every one of those links to its own pronunciation page here.
How is /z/ spelled in English?
It is written "z", "zz", "s", "se", "x". 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 /z/ hard?
Urdu has z securely; in many Hindi varieties it merges with /dʒ/, so 'zoo' can begin like 'joo'.
Record the Z sound and see if it landed
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