IPA reference · consonant
z — voiced alveolar fricative
The voiced counterpart of /s/.
How to make the voiced alveolar fricative
Same groove and placement as /s/, with voicing.
English reference points: zoo, buzz. If you speak English natively you already produce this sound — the work is recognising it and placing it where the target language wants it.
Languages that use it
Sounds it gets confused with
Most pronunciation errors are not random — they are a substitution of the nearest sound the speaker already owns. These are the usual substitutions for z, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
French j and English "measure" are further back than /z/.
What this means for learners
German and Russian devoice it word-finally; Spanish has no /z/ phoneme at all.
Teaching this sound
Describing a sound in words gets a student roughly half the way there. The other half is hearing it produced correctly, immediately after producing it incorrectly, with both versions available to replay. That is the argument for recording during the lesson rather than after it: the student leaves with your model of z attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol z make?
z is the voiced alveolar fricative. The voiced counterpart of /s/. In English you can hear it in: zoo, buzz.
How do you pronounce z?
Same groove and placement as /s/, with voicing.
Which languages have the voiced alveolar fricative?
Among the languages covered here: French (maison, “house”); Italian (rosa, “rose”).
What is the difference between z and ʒ?
French j and English "measure" are further back than /z/.