Ch, Tr pronounication

[bibi00]

I'm analyzing my speech and noticed almost all the words with "tr" in them, I pronounce them wrong. (eg. train, tree, try... but not when the "tr" is behind an "s" like in "instrument") . So I'm wondering how your tongue moves for "tr".

Also, I notice when I say a "ch" word, I say "sh" instead (How do you get the c sound instead of the sssss sound). (Like the differences in saying share and chair. Also, in words like "teach", "catch". )Can someone tell me what the difference should be to correct my way of saying it?

Thanks

 

[Raymott]

I'm analyzing my speech and noticed almost all the words with "tr" in them, I pronounce them wrong. (eg. train, tree, try... but not when the "tr" is behind an "s" like in "instrument") . So I'm wondering how your tongue moves for "tr".

Also, I notice when I say a "ch" word, I say "sh" instead (How do you get the c sound instead of the sssss sound). (Like the differences in saying share and chair. Also, in words like "teach", "catch". )Can someone tell me what the difference should be to correct my way of saying it?

Thanks

I can help with the second. Just pretend there is a /t/ before the 'ch' - /tsh/. Try saying 'teatch'. Hmm, you must not be saying the /t/ in 'catch'. I don't see why you say 'cash' when there's a 't' there.
You don't say 'c' instead of 's'; you say /tʃ/ instead of /ʃ/.

 

[bibi00]

I still can't get it, which is very frustrating. I just realized that even for my 1st language (Chinese), it has "ch" sounds and apparently I always say it with "sh" sound.

I'm reading online and seeing both sounds use the same method to make their sounds. But I can't get the ch sound....

 

[DontBanMe]

I'm analyzing my speech and noticed almost all the words with "tr" in them, I pronounce them wrong. (eg. train, tree, try... but not when the "tr" is behind an "s" like in "instrument") . So I'm wondering how your tongue moves for "tr".

Also, I notice when I say a "ch" word, I say "sh" instead (How do you get the c sound instead of the sssss sound). (Like the differences in saying share and chair. Also, in words like "teach", "catch". )Can someone tell me what the difference should be to correct my way of saying it?

Thanks

well, do people have difficulty understanding what you say?
You know, learnin perfect english could take ages!
so my advice is to attend phonetics class or just ask your canadian friends.
By the way, to make the /t/ sound, put your tongue on the alveolar ridge (the hard bump just behind your teeth). As for the r sound, this could be tough for most of the chinese-speaking people. I wasn't able to make the r sound until I learnt it on youtube. But I only know how to make the american R sound. First, you say *er* by pursing your lips. your lips must be rounded. second thing is your tongue doesn't touch any part in your mouth. It would move towards the hard palate but it doesn't make any contact with it. well, as for the ch and sh sound, it's pretty easy. I'll share a link here. YouTube - "SH" Pronunciation English Meeting ESL Lesson (sh sound)
YouTube - CH and JJ Sounds: American English Pronunciation (ch and jj sound)
Alas, I have difficulty making the /ng/ sound. I don't know how to put it! My front part of the tongue is supposed to remain low when i make the ng sound. However, it would tend to move up when i'm raising my back of the tongue to touch the soft palate. I hope this helps!

 

[birdeen's call]

Bibi, there's one thing you should know about /tʃ/. As you can see there are two symbols here, "t" and "ʃ", written one after the other. You say you can pronounce both of these sounds. You can say "teat" (/ti:t/) and you can say "sheet" (/ʃi:t/). Is that right?

As Raymott said, you can see /tʃ/ as a sequence of these two sounds. This will be a good approximation of how it is pronounced. It's called a stop-fricative sequence. /t/ is the stop consonant here and /ʃ/ is the fricative. However, this is not how most native speakers would pronounce the sound. The sound is actually an affricate. I cannot copy the symbol of the sound here because I don't have the necessary font installed on this computer. I can however post a link to the Wikipedia article that discusses the sound. It has the symbol too, and a sound file. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tʃ