Palatal consonant phonemes /ʤ/, /ʧ/

English has two consonants that are produced in the palatal or pre-palatal regions of the mouth: the affricate pair /ʤ/, /ʧ/, in which each is a blend of a stop plus fricative consonant which together function as a single phoneme.

The voiced affricate /ʤ/ as in judge, which is more properly written with a ligature in IPA as /d͡ʒ/ with no space between the letters; it is also written as /ǰ/, /ǧ/ /ǯ/ or /dž/ in some texts that do not strictly follow the International Phonetic Alphabet.
The voiceless affricate /ʧ/ as in cheap, which is more properly written with a ligature in IPA as /t͡ʃ/ with no space between the letters; it is also written as /č/.

In teaching pronunciation, these are often distinguished from each other, from the English /s/ and /z/ sounds, the English post-alveoloar consonant phonemes /ʒ/, /ʃ/, and from post-alveolar or palatal consonants in the students' first language. In this article, slash marks like /ʧ/ indicate a phoneme, while angled brackets like <ch> indicate a letter or spelling.

1 Linguistic description

Manner of articulation: Both sounds are affricates, produced by first entirely stopping the air flow like a stop consonant, and then the tongue pulls back to create friction (like a fricative consonant), creating turbulence.
In manner of articulation, both sounds are sibilant affricates, produced by stopping and then pushing the air stream along the grooved tongue surface (the tongue blade, or the front section of the tongue) creating a hissing-style high frequency noise due to air turbulence.
Place of articulation: Both sounds are palato-alveolar, i.e., with the tongue blade touching an area ranging from behind the alveolar gum ridge to the pre-palatal area. In English, the tongue is apical, that is, the tongue blade is pointed up toward the alveolar/palatal region. The stop and friction is created between the tongue tip (apex) plus tongue blade area and the palatal-alveolar area.
The /ʤ/ sound is voiced, i.e., produced with vibration of the vocal cords.
The /ʧ/ sound is voiceless, i.e, produced without vibration of the vocal cords.

1.1 Cross-linguistic comparison

The voiced consonant /ʤ/ is not so common in European or other languages, except as a dialectal or allophonic variant in a few languages like Portuguese, or a fairly rare sound from loanwords, such as the German word Dschungel from the English jungle. The voiceless consonant /ʧ/ is fairly common in some European and other languages, most notably in German (e.g., Quatsch nonsense), and less often in Italian (e.g., ciao hello), Polish and Hungarian, and in a few others as allophones or dialectal variants. In German, the lips might be slightly more rounded for these sounds.

East Asian equivalents present some difficulties, as the equivalent or analogous sounds are produced differently and have different syllabic patterns. Chinese (Mandarin and other varieties), Japanese and Korean have dental-alveolar or alveolo-palatal affricates, which are produced with the front tongue blade. More importantly, while the English sounds are apical, with the tongue blade and tip pointing up toward the alveolar-palatal area, in these East Asian languages, the tongue blade is flat, and friction is created between the flat tongue blade and the alveolar-palatal area. This tongue position is termed laminal, as opposed to apical. Examples:

The voiceless affricate /tɕ/ in Chinese, as in Beijing, and in Korean, as in 자다 jada to sleep.
The voiceless aspirated affricate /t͡ɕʰ/ in Chinese, as in the syllable qing; in Korean, as in 차다 chada to kick; and in Japanese, as in nichi two.
The voiced affricate /dʑ/ which occurs as variant of /tɕ/ between vowels in Korean, e.g., 이제 ijae now.
A glottalized affricate /tɕ^ʔ/ in Korean, produced with extra pressure from the glottis, e.g., 짜다 jjada to squeeze or salty.

For East Asians, their sibilant fricative sounds are more syllabically restricted. In English, these sounds can occur anywhere in a word in principle - word-initially as in show, medially as in vision or fission, and word-finally as in fish. East Asians may need to learn to pronounce these word-finally without inserting an extra vowel. Koreans and Japanese have particular problems, as their sibilant fricatives do not occur word-finally in their languages without an extra end vowel. This is also related to the laminal pronunciation of the Korean and Japanese fricatives. Thus, their pronunciation of fish can sound like fishy or fish-uh with a flat tongue.

Some languages have sibilant affricates that are more retroflexed, that is, with the tongue tip bent further back in the mouth and touching the central palatal area, behind where the /ʤ/ and /ʧ/ are produced. Learners will need to bend the tongue slightly forward.

The voiceless retroflex /tʂ/ as in Chinese 中 zhong middle.
The voiceless retroflex /tʂ^h/ as in Chinese chai tea.

1.2 Teaching /ʤ/ and /ʧ/ production

For those from a first language (L1) background from Europe and many other parts of the world, these sounds may not be so problematic. Some languages have /ʧ/ but no /ʤ/, so learning to hear and produce /ʤ/ is simply a matter of pronouncing /ʧ/ and then vibrating the vocal cords. Students can place their hands on their throats to feel the vibration. They can begin with the voiceless - voiced contrast between /s/ and /z/ to learn how to vocalize another unvoiced consonant.

Students whose L1 has alveolar-palatal or fully palatal sounds instead will need to learn to adjust their tongue position, bringing it more forward or more back. East Asians need to learn to pronounce these sounds with an apical tongue pointing toward the top of the oral cavity instead of the flat-tongue pronunciation. They will also need to learn to pronounce final /ʤ/ and /ʧ/ without inserting an extra vowel or extra air flow at the end.

It should be noted that the voiced consonant /ʤ/ is less common in English. It occurs mainly in words from Latin and Old French spelled with <j> and <dj> such as jury and adjure. The /ʧ/ is much more common and probably deserves more priority and attention; this occurs in words from Old French and Latin spelled with <ch>, and in Latin words with spellings like <-Ction> (consonant plus -tion in spelling) like abduction.

2 Practice activities and materials

Minimal pairs, which contrast a target sound with a sound that is a separate phoneme, are typical starting points for production and practice activities, particularly comparing the following, depending on the learners' levels and L1 backgrounds.

/ʤ/ as badge with /ʒ/ as in beige
/ʤ/ as badge with /z/ as in zebra
/ʤ/ as badge with /ʧ/ as in chair
/ʧ/ as in chair with /ʃ/ as in share

These contrasts should be shown with minimal pair contrasts in syllable-initial, consonant cluster, medial, and final position. For more on types of minimal pairs activities to train listeners to discern and produce sounds, see the following.

2.1 Short narratives

The following are some short narratives that I wrote for practicing fricative and affricate (blend) consonants, namely, the sounds /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/.

1.

In the zoo at night, silence fell as the zoo visitors left. Crickets chirped as church bells rang out from an adjacent district. In the cages, crocs guarded their eggs as ducks lapsed into slumber. The elks cringed as already satisfied tigers nearby loudly belched. The asps blitzed about their dens, while hedgehogs rummaged for grubs, and black bats emerged from the warmth of their crypts. A lynx triumphed over its prey and plopped it down before its mates, as wolves glimpsed at the skunks kept safe from them by a chain link cage, and loathed the four-legged morsels that they could not grasp.

2.

Out by the oaks, ants who had waltzed amongst each other in the daytime relaxed for the night, as did ant lions that had delved into the sands. Spiders in their orbs wrapped their desiccated bugs and other victims that they had bagged in spider silk, like limbs set in casts. Under the light of the street lamps, various insects made their attempts at acts of courtship, but the less lucky dating applicants were jinxed by the heat of the light bulbs.

2.2 Word-final position

Watch out for these sounds at the end of words. There should not be an extra syllable.

/ʃ/	/ʒ/	/ʧ/	/ʤ/
fish English reddish selfish squeamish outlandish	beige rouge barrage deluge mirage collage	church wretch besmirch attach unlatch reattach	scourge language adage sewage beverage advantage

3 Minimal pairs

3.1 /ʤ/ as badge with /ʒ/ as in beige

Very few word pairs exist for the /ʒ/ - /ʤ/ distinction; near-minimal pairs are in parentheses.

medial		final
(beige) (leisure) version	(badge) (ledger) virgin	(beige)	(page)

3.2 /ʤ/ as badge with /z/ as in zebra

Most minimal pairs involve word-final contrasts.

initial	medial	final
Tsar jar zany Janie zealous jealous zee G Zen gen zest jest zip gyp Zoe Joey zone Joan zoo Jew	maser major overzealous overjealous reason region	arraigns arrange A's age assemblies assemblage baas barge backstays backstage bandies bandage baronies baronage bills bilge bins binge buzz budge cabbies cabbage carries carriage chains change chars charge collies college curries courage dhotis dotage does doge doses dosage doze doge errs urge flans flange fours forge frizz fridge fuzz fudge gays gage gaze gage grains grange hews huge ill-uses ill-usage intermarries intermarriage jaws George K's cage leas liege lees liege Les ledge	mains mange marries marriage Mars Marge messes message miscarries miscarriage Ms midge pays page peonies peonage peris peerage potties pottage presses presage purrs purge rains range raise rage rays rage remarries remarriage res Reg says sedge screws Scrooge seas siege sees siege seize siege sirs serge sirs surge spinneys spinach stays stage storeys storage stories storage strains strange tunnies tonnage twins twinge uses usage ways wage weighs wage

3.3 /ʤ/ as badge with /ʧ/ as in chair

A fair number of minimal pairs exist for the /ʧ/ - /ʤ/ distinction.

initial		medial		final
chain char charred Chas chaw cheer cheese cherry chess chest chested Chester chew chill chin chink chip chipped chive choice choke choker chore chug chump chunk chunky	Jane jar jarred jazz jaw jeer G’s jerry Jess jest jested jester Jew gill gin jink gyp gypped jive Joyce joke joker jaw jug jump junk junkie	catcher etching lecher	cadger edging ledger	batch beseech catch cinch etch H hotchpotch larch leach leech lunch march match perch perched retch / wretch rich search searches splotch	badge besiege cadge singe edge age hodgepodge large liege liege lunge marge Madge purge purged Reg ridge surge surges splodge

3.4 /ʧ/ as in chair with /ʃ/ as in share

initial	medial	final
had Chad shaft chaffed shah char shan't chant shard Chard share chair shat (vulgar / taboo) chat shatter chatter sheaf chief shear / sheer cheer sheet cheat sherry cherry shied chide shilling chilling shin chin shine chine shipboard chipboard ship (vulgar / taboo) chip shit chit shock chock shoe chew shoo chew shop chop shopper chopper shore chaw shore chore shows chose shuck chuck splosh splotch swish switch	fuchsia future washer watcher	bash batch Boche botch bush butch cache catch cash catch chic cheek crush crutch dish ditch hash hatch hush hutch lash latch leash leach leash leech marsh march mash match mush much nosh notch push putsch racial Rachel rash ratch reddish Redditch wash watch wish which wish witch