/ʒ/

The /ʒ/: the /ʃ/ with voice

The /ʒ/ is made exactly like /ʃ/, but with the vocal cords vibrating. It's a soft, fairly rare sound, and it almost never appears at the start of a word. If you've got /ʃ/ under control, all you need to add is voice.

How it's made

• 👄 Mouth: lips slightly rounded, just as for /ʃ/.
• 👅 Tongue: close to the palate, with a narrow channel for the air.
• 🔊 Voice: voiced — with a hand on your throat you should feel the vibration.

You hear it in: measure · vision · genre · usual · garage

⚠️ The typical Spanish-speaker mistake: dropping the voice and leaving a /ʃ/, or turning it into the Spanish y. Vision is neither vishion nor viyion.

By the end you'll be able to: add vibration to the /ʃ/ and recognize the /ʒ/ inside words.