Consonant phonemes /ʒ/, /ʃ/

English has two fricative consonants that are produced in the post-alveolar or pre-palatal regions of the mouth: the fricative pair /ʒ/ and /ʃ/.

• The voiced fricative /ʒ/ as in beige, also written as /ž/ in some texts that do not strictly follow the International Phonetic Alphabet.
• The voiceless fricative /ʃ/ as in fish, also written as /š/.

In teaching pronunciation, these are often distinguished from each other, from the English /s/ and /z/ sounds, from the English palatal consonant phonemes /ʤ/, /ʧ/, and from post-alveolar or palatal consonants in the students' first language,