IPA reference · consonant
t͡ʃ — voiceless postalveolar affricate
A stop released into /ʃ/.
Also called: ch sound
How to make the voiceless postalveolar affricate
The ch of "church" — a single unit, not t followed by sh.
English reference points: church, watch. 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 t͡ʃ, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
Polish cz, Russian and Mandarin ch are retroflex.
Polish ć and Mandarin q are alveolo-palatal.
What this means for learners
As with /ʃ/, English /tʃ/ sits between the two series that Polish, Russian and Mandarin distinguish.
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 t͡ʃ attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol t͡ʃ make?
t͡ʃ is the voiceless postalveolar affricate. A stop released into /ʃ/. In English you can hear it in: church, watch.
How do you pronounce t͡ʃ?
The ch of "church" — a single unit, not t followed by sh.
Which languages have the voiceless postalveolar affricate?
Among the languages covered here: Spanish (chico, “boy”); Italian (ciao, “hi/bye”); Turkish (çay, “tea”).
What is the difference between t͡ʃ and tʂ?
Polish cz, Russian and Mandarin ch are retroflex.