Questions about /dz/ and /ts/

Question

There are sounds which are very similar to English /dz/ (in beds) and /ts/ (in cats) in my mother tongue. So when I pronounce the English /dz/ and /ts/, I usually substitute them with the sounds of my mother tongue. I wonder how the native speakers pronounce the /dz/ and /ts/. Do you pronounce the /d/ and /z/ simultaneously to form a /dz/? Does the tip of your tongue touch the back part behind your upper teeth? Thanks very much.

Stephen

Kooyeen · Accepted Answer

stephenlearnerDo you pronounce the /d/ and /z/ simultaneously to form a /dz/? Does the tip of your tongue touch the back part behind your upper teeth?

It's hard to explain the difference between /dz/ pronounced as a single sound, and /dz/ pronounced as two separate sounds, /d/ and /z/. In English they are never completely separated (if you pronounced them completely separate you would have something like /d?z/, which is not ok in this case). The more separate they are, the more they sound like /d?z/, and the more close they are, the more they sound like one single sound. I think that in English they usually are a little bit separated in careful speech, and tend to become one single sound in faster speech. The tongue tip, for these sounds, tends to be behind the front teeth without touching them.
This is what I think. It is a difficult question.

CalifJim · Answer

stephenlearner Do you pronounce the /d/ and /z/ simultaneously to form a /dz/? Does the tip of your tongue touch the back part behind your upper teeth?

Yes. Yes. But that doesn't guarantee you'll get exactly the right sound. You said that your own language has sounds which are "very similar". You didn't say "exactly the same".

My guess is that you'll be OK thinking of them as equivalent to those sounds in your own language.

CJ

Stephenlearner · Answer

They sound similar. But their places of articulation are not the same.

I will try to make the correct /dz/, though it is not easy to do that.

CalifJim · Answer

stephenlearnerthough it is not easy to do that.

Really? I don't have any trouble with it.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

There are two parts to the /d/ sound in English: the rumble and then the explosion. When I say "d", first, I get my tongue, jaw, and lips in the right place. Second, I vibrate my vocal chords (the rumble), building up tension, like a bull waiting to go into the ring. Third, I let the sound explode out of my mouth.

For the /dz/ sound, I do the rumble, but not the explosion. (The wind up, but not the pitch, if you're looking for a sports image). Instead of exploding the sound out using the /d/ mouth configuration, I do the rumble, then change my mouth to the /z/ configuration, then explode. ( I wind up for the /d/ sound, but throw a /z/ pitch, if that makes any sense).

I think this is known as an "unreleased" sound for the /d/.

This sound is really difficult for my Chinese students because they almost never use their vocal chords for consonants, so they don't make the /d/ or the /z/ sound properly to begin with.

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