IPA reference · consonant
x — voiceless velar fricative
Continuous friction between the back of the tongue and the soft palate.
Also called: ach-Laut, kh sound
How to make the voiceless velar fricative
Start to say /k/, but instead of releasing the closure into a burst, leave a narrow gap and let the air rasp through.
English reference points: loch (Scottish), Bach. 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 x, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
The usual English substitution — too far back and with no oral friction.
Dutch, Hebrew and some Arabic dialects push it further back to the uvula.
What this means for learners
Present in German, Dutch, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish and Scots — one of the highest-value single sounds to acquire.
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 x attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol x make?
x is the voiceless velar fricative. Continuous friction between the back of the tongue and the soft palate. In English you can hear it in: loch (Scottish), Bach.
How do you pronounce x?
Start to say /k/, but instead of releasing the closure into a burst, leave a narrow gap and let the air rasp through.
Which languages have the voiceless velar fricative?
Among the languages covered here: German (Bach, “stream”); Russian (хорошо, “good”); Greek (χαρά, “joy”); Arabic (خبز, “bread”).
What is the difference between x and h?
The usual English substitution — too far back and with no oral friction.