How to Pronounce: The /s/ and /z/ sounds of American English, part 1

Hello! I’m John Russell. Have you ever wondered about the difference between books and cars? I’m not talking about the objects themselves. Instead, I’m talking about how the endings of the words are pronounced. They are both plural nouns with an –s at the end, but the endings sound different: Books Cars Books has a /s/ sound at the end, while cars has a /z/ sound at the end. Why is that? In American English, we pronounce the letter s in two ways – as /s/ and as /z/. How can you tell when? One helpful thing to think about is voicing. If your vocal cords move, we say a consonant is voiced. If your vocal cords do not move, we say it is voiceless. When the letter s follows a voiceless consonant, it is often pronounced as /s/. Let's think back to the word books. The word book ends in a /k/ sound. It is a voiceless sound. When it is plural, the letter s is pronounced as a /s/ - another voiceless sound. books You can think of the idea like this: voiceless sounds go with voiceless sounds. Many common words follow this pattern, including verbs. Think about this statement: He eats a lot. The verb eat ends in a /t/ sound – a voiceless sound. So, the s at the end of the verb sounds like a /s/. So, why does the word cars have a /z/ sound at the end? We’ll explore that in a future episode. Originally published at - https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a...