Pronunciation coach Hadar Shemesh breaks down the three ways to pronounce CH in English: the /tʃ/ sound in "chair" and "catch", the /k/ sound in Greek and Latin words like "character" and "schedule", and the /ʃ/ sound in French loanwords like "chef" and "machine".
Chapters
How do you pronounce this letter combination? Is it 'ch' as in chicken, 'sh' as in chef, or 'k' as in school? Today we are going to talk about all the possible sounds that are associated with this combination, C and H, because English is not a phonetic language and what you see is not always what you hear. So today we are going to talk about what you hear when you see this. If you're new to my channel, then hello, my name is Hadar. I'm a pronunciation coach and a non-native speaker of English, and I am here to help you speak English with clarity, with confidence, and with freedom. So definitely come on over to my website at hadarshemesh.com to check out all the free resources that I have for you— hundreds of lessons and free PDFs for you to practice and build your confidence and clarity in English. I also want to invite you to join my 14-day pronunciation It's on my private app. It's absolutely free, and it's basically 14 days where every day you will learn and practice something new. So by the end of the 14 days, you will have built strong practice habits and acquired so much clarity around so many important sounds in English. It's absolutely free. So click the link below to download the 14-day pronunciation plan. All right, let's begin with the first pronunciation of this letter combination, and that is the CH sound. The CH is an affricate, which means you start with a stop sound, the T sound, and then you release it to a fricative, which is the SH sound. So the CH is a phoneme that is combined of two sounds that are glued together, the T and the SH. T, SH, T, SH, T, SH. It has to be connected. Chair. Now, there are some speakers that struggle with this combination, and they might replace chair with share, just the sh sound. This is not enough because if you drop the t part of the chair, you are going to be saying a different word. Share, chair, share, chair, share. Chair. So we don't want to skip that block of air at the beginning. The tongue goes up, you block the air, and then you release it softly and slowly into the SH sound. Not just SH, but TSH, TSH, TSH. Also, you have it in catch at the end. TSH, TSH, chair. TSH, TSH, catch, not share or cash. Chair, share. Can you hear the difference? Chair, share. Cash, catch. Do it with me. It's really good for your breathing as well. Chair. Let's practice a few more words. Check, cheese, church. Not church, church. Chew, chimney, chore. Do your chores. Touch, touch. Don't touch me, don't touch me. Catch, Catch. That's a good catch. Good catch. Teach. Teach. I love to teach. And then kitchen. Kitchen. Kitchen. Good. A strong block of air and then release it to a 'sh'. Kitchen. Good. So that's the first and most common sound that you'll hear when you see the letter combination C and H, this spelling pattern. But you'll also notice that this spelling pattern is pronounced as /k/, as in chorus, chorus, chorus, and choir, choir. It's not choir, it's choir. Character. "Character" and "chemical". "Chemical", not "chemikal". "Chemical". "Chemistry", not "chemistry". "Chemistry". "Scholar". "Scholar". "Chaos". "Chaos". Stomach, stomach. Patriarch, patriarch. Architect. Practice with me. Architect, architect. And lastly, schedule, schedule. In American English, you will hear the sound. Schedule. Good. Now you'll also notice that the CH is often pronounced as a SH sound without that T. So it's not ch but sh, easier for those who struggle with the previous sound, as in chef or chic or machine or parachute. Or brochure, or champagne, or mustache. Mustache. All right, so these are the 3 key sounds that are associated with the CH spelling pattern. If you want to practice your pronunciation a bit more with me, definitely sign up for my 14-day pronunciation plan. It is absolutely free. It's on my app, so you have a video and a PDF and audio to practice, and you do one lesson a day for 14 days to build habits and to improve your pronunciation in under 2 weeks. Well, 2 weeks exactly, but you'll notice the results in less than 2 weeks, I promise. I hope this was helpful. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day, and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
