/j/

Be careful with this one! It looks, well, it it looks like a J, it looks like a “j” but this is actually pronounced “yuh.” If you’re from Europe, this is a little bit easier because it’s quite common there. If not, just be careful with this one. The letter Y – the letter Y – is sometimes a consonant and sometimes a vowel. Here, we are looking at Y as a consonant, which is why it makes the “yuh” sound. /j/ is made by pushing the tongue up and back and then lowering it. /y/ is voiced. Let’s look at some examples in word-initial position: yes, unit, year, yawn, yellow. And now the sound and some sentences: The young yak yawned yesterday. Yale is a unique University. The youngster yanked the yellow yarn. All right, you’re probably wondering when is Y a consonant, and when is it a vowel? I’ll help you out. Y is a constant when it comes at the beginning of a word, so yellow, young, yet, yell. Y is a vowel when there’s no other vowel in the word: cry, my, fly, there’s nothing there in those words that could possibly be a vowel so Y has to be the vowel there. Also the Y is in the middle or the end of the syllable: system, typical, nylon, Egypt, style, candy, deny. Well, thank you very much for watching this video about consonants and remember on my website, I have exercises that will help you practice and will even give you some feedback. Good luck!