Hi everyone, and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation

podcast. My name is Mandy, and this is our 88th podcast. Today's topic is about the T-C-H spelling,

as in the words watch, catch, and switch.

All of those words are pronounced with a C-H sound,

and do not also have a T-Sound despite the T of the T-C-H.

The final sound of the words attach, A-C-C-H. The final sound of the words Attach, A-T-A-C-H, and catch, C-A-T-C-C-H, are exactly the same, and neither of them have

a T-Sound.

If you've been thinking that there is a T sound in the T-C-H spelling,

don't worry. It's probably actually helping you. It's an odd fact that many of my students

cannot pronounce the C-H sound when it's spelled C-H, but can pronounce it when it spelled T-C-H.

Before I talk about how to create the sound, however, let me talk about spelling.

The T-C-H spelling has the benefit of being consistently pronounced with the C.H.

Sound, whereas the C.H. spelling has three options.

You may remember from episode 85, which was about the word Christmas,

that the C.H. spelling can be pronounced as the C-H sound, as in the word chip,

the K sound, as in the words chaos and Christmas, and the S-H sound, as in the word chef.

The T-C-H spelling is much easier because you can always assume it is pronounced as the C-H sound.

So what exactly is the C-H sound?

This kind of sound is an africate, which means that for a tiny bit, we stop all the air from leaving the vocal tract,

then when we release the air, we do it with friction.

English has only two africate sounds, the CH sound and the J sound.

Now, I already told you that there is no T sound in the T-C-H spelling.

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