IPA reference · consonant
f — voiceless labiodental fricative
The lower lip approaches the upper teeth and air passes through with friction, without voicing.
How to make the voiceless labiodental fricative
Top teeth on bottom lip, blow through the gap.
English reference points: fish, off. 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 f, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
Many learners substitute /f/ for the English th, so "three" becomes "free".
What this means for learners
Nearly universal across languages, so it rarely causes trouble — except as a substitute for sounds a learner lacks.
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 f attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol f make?
f is the voiceless labiodental fricative. The lower lip approaches the upper teeth and air passes through with friction, without voicing. In English you can hear it in: fish, off.
How do you pronounce f?
Top teeth on bottom lip, blow through the gap.
Which languages have the voiceless labiodental fricative?
Among the languages covered here: French (fleur, “flower”); Greek (φως, “light”).
What is the difference between f and θ?
Many learners substitute /f/ for the English th, so "three" becomes "free".