I am writing English lessons for children and in each lesson a few sounds are taught, not separately, of course, but in words. I'd like to teach [ʃ] and [ʒ] sounds together, in the section about animals and pets. There is no trouble with [ʃ] (a fish, though not exactly an animal, is OK). But I can't think of anything with [ʒ]. If I don't find a word, I'll think of other ways to introduce this sound, but I decided to ask here first.
Thank you, kinkajou is very pretty, but it was the first time I had heard about it. :-D I thought kids need more common words.
As to 'fish', yes, the sound is different, I just wanted to teach these two sounds (sh and j as in kinkajou) together in the topic about animals. Thank you anyway!
P.S. And on second thought - why not try kinkajou, it may be interesting for kids to learn about a new animal! I think I'll take it.
According to this online dictionary, the word has its origins in French so I can see why it would have the soft "j", as it's pronounced in French. However, I can imagine that even if it started as the soft "j", it's probably becoming a hard "j" as naturally pronounced in most variants of English.