Hello. I'm John Russell.
In today's program, we will explore fricatives.
The term means that there is a partial obstruction in the air stream.
There are eight of these consonant sounds in Englsih — they are/f/,/v/,/θ/,/ð/,/s/,/z/,/ʃ/and/ʒ/.
Fricative are often a source of confusion for English learners.
Some English learners confuse them with stops — consonant sounds that are made by creating a stop in the air flow.
To be clear, fricatives mean there is a partial obstruction in the air stream.
Stops mean there is a full obstruction in the air stream.
Some English learners substitute fricative sounds with stop sounds.
For example, they might replace the/θ/sound with the/t/sound.
