Phonology: Pronunciation Differences Between "d͡ʒ" and "ʒ"

I am very perplexed and confused at how the International Phonetic Alphabet system distinguishes between the respective pronunciations of d͡ʒ (as in the "j" in jump) and ʒ (as in the "s" in pleasure). In my experience, they are pronounced exactly the same. Can someone enlighten me?

The first one is like the j in "blue jeans", the second one is like the js in "Jean Valjean".

It has been a while since I did any linguistics, but just from saying the two sounds/word examples given, d͡ʒ has a "harder"/more abrupt start, while ʒ is a bit "softer".

To use the technical terminology which I just pulled from the other wiki, d͡ʒ is an Affricate consonant that begins with a stop, while ʒ is not.

Yeah, the first one is a bit "harder" with the tongue pressed against the palate ("dj"), while the second is the "softer" version without use of the tongue ("j").

edited 25th Oct '11 12:01:02 PM by Lock

The first is "juh" and the second is "zsuh." It's like the difference between "Дж" and "ж" in Russian.

Very nice explanations in theory, and I really appreciate the effort. Unfortunately, as I have discovered long ago, such an approach in phonology isn't quite useful for laymen like me, who would very much prefer the theory explained by the means of practical examples - like hearing both consonant sounds being pronounced in the same position (e.g. both are initials) and followed by the same vowel sounds.

"zsuh"? That sounds... very difficult to pronounce IMO. And I know diddly-squat about the pronunciation(s) of Russian-specific letters. ^^;

edited 25th Oct '11 3:04:34 PM by MarqFJA

"In my experience, they are pronounced exactly the same."

...That's a problem.

Yeah, well, for what's it worth, whatever competent English speakers that I regularly come into contact with, whether proficient or not, are not native speakers to whom English is their first language, let alone being semi-obsessive English linguists who insist on speaking every single consonant and vowel in "the right way", so perhaps it's just that nobody around me pronounces one or both of the sounds right. For the record, I only had prolonged contact with three native English speakers through out my whole life, all of whom were my university/college English language course instructors, and I am certain that at least two of them are Canadians.

edited 25th Oct '11 3:16:45 PM by MarqFJA

You may not simply be able to hear it at first.

I'm serious. If you're not aware of a phonetic difference, you may literally be unable to distinguish the noise. As a French/English bilingual to differentiate them for you, because our text over the Internet just isn't gonna do it. It took me forever to learn how to hear the unaspirated/aspirated/geminate distinction in Korean, and I still can't pronounce it all that well.

For dʒ, take "ch" and pronounce it voiced, like "jam". For "ʒ" take "sh" and voice it, like the French "J".

Curious, how do you pronounce it? Like, does "pleasure" sound the same as "P"+"ledger" or not?

edited 25th Oct '11 4:10:35 PM by Zersk

.... So, just like how "ch" is more or less "sh" with a preceding "t"(-like) sound (i.e. "tsh"), the d͡ʒ symbol represents a sound similar to ʒ but with an essentially "silent" "d" sound preceding it (i.e. "(d)j"), right? No wonder the words "edge" and "budget" sounded so weird in Dictionary.com's pronunciations of them; I'm used to hearing the "d" in each word being clearly voiced as, well, "d"s.

Re "pleasure": It uses the ʒ symbol for "s", so it's supposed to be prounounced "pleh-jur" (or "pleh-zhur", as the dictionaries seem to insist on when not using the IPA system), or something like that.

edited 25th Oct '11 4:46:05 PM by MarqFJA

Here you go.

This is me saying [d͡ʒa ʒa] three times.

Wow, that was very helpful. Now I get what that "starts with a 'stop' sound" stuff meant. Thanks, man!

Marqy: Well, I wanted to know how you specifically pronounce it. :P

That is how I pronounce it. In fact, so far I also pronounced every "j" and soft "g" the same way.

I think you gotta LINK us find a site with spoken words, then we can say which sounds are sh, tsh, zh, dzh etc. If you still can't hear the difference, then we can't help you dude, shit happens.

Matrix already clarified the difference to me a few posts above. -_-; No need to sound so pessimistic.

One involves use of a glottal stop, the other doesn't. In other words, your tongue touches the roof of your mouth.