Learn to Pronounce the SH Sound /ʃ/ - American English Ultimate Pronunciation Challenge Master Class

Hi everybody, it's Jennifer from Tarot Speech. Welcome back to the American Pronunciation Master Class series. This week we are talking about the S-H sound. Let's go ahead and jump right in and start talking about the S-H sound. For those of you who are curious, this is the phonetic symbol for S-H. It's this sort of long S-looking object. Again, we mainly spell this with two letters. Most of the time we are going to spell this sh sound with the two letters S-H. So S-H, we see this in ship. Some other ways that we spell this S-H sound, sometimes we use the C-H. We hear that a lot when words have a French derivation and we see this C-H combination in the word brochure. So we pronounce that with an S-H. We can also see the letter C pronounced S-H like in special, T as an action. That T-I-O-N ending, that suffix, is always pronounced shun. A little tip for you there. We also have that with the F in shun extension and a double F in mission. If you are curious, we would also pronounce the C-I-A-N as shun. We see that in the word position. So the suffix T-I-O-N, S-I-O-N, and C-I-A-N are all pronounced shun. What are we going to do with our mouth? Let's talk about it and then I will make myself bigger so that you can see me. Lips are rounded, puckered. They are like a kissing shape. The tongue is in the middle of the mouth. It is flat and high. It is not touching the front teeth at all. Airflow continues out of the mouth and the voice is off. If you're listening to me on a podcast, head on over to YouTube and you can see me demonstrating this sound. Okay. Now we are going to practice some words with the S-H sound and then we will practice some sentences. Again, if you're listening to me, go over to YouTube and you can watch me and read the words as well. All right. So what I'm going to do is I am going to pronounce these words. I want you to just listen. Then I will have you repeat after me. All right. Here we go. Just listen. Shrimp, shark, shell, chef, ship, section, mention, wishes, musician, special, English, vanish, wash, wish, brush. Okay. Repeat after me. Shrimp, shark, shelf, chef, ship, section, mention, wishes, musician, special, English, vanish, wash, wish, brush. Now I'm going to say one entire column and then you give it a try. Shrimp, shark, shelf, chef, ship, section, mention, wishes, musician, special, English, vanish, wash, wish, brush. All right. You're doing great. Let's move on to sentences. Just listen. Sheila shipped the shells via ship. The English chef wished he could serve shrimp for the special occasion. All right. Let's try the first one. Sheila shipped the shells via ship. You can also say via ship. Either is fine. Sheila shipped the shells via ship. Sheila shipped the shells via ship. Sentence number two. The English chef wished he could serve shrimp for the special occasion. The English chef wished he could serve shrimp for the special occasion. Hey, everybody. I hope that you found this helpful. If you would like to practice and I hope you will join me tomorrow. I will be posting a follow along pronunciation lesson Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this week. If you're new here, these are lessons that I sell and have been for sale for years. They are available on the iTunes store. If you want those all in one place, you can check out the links below for that. I hope you found this helpful. If you did, please share this with your friends and join me every day this year for a new lesson to celebrate my 20th year in business here at Charles Beach. Thanks so much, everyone, for being here. I will see you tomorrow.