Speech Sound Development

adjective relating to or involving both lips, such as the sounds made by bringing both lips together

• The phoneme /p/ is a bilabial sound produced by bringing both lips together.
• When you say 'pop', notice how your lips come together for the bilabial sound.
• I love how the beatboxer can make those cool bilabial sounds with his lips.
• The artist's painting had a bilabial quality to it, with the colors blending seamlessly like lips coming together.

noun a basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable

adjective in agreement or harmony with

• In English language, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract.
• I always struggle with pronouncing words with multiple consonants in them.
• I find it hard to keep up with all the different consonant sounds in different languages.
• His stoic demeanor was like a consonant presence amidst the chaos of the room.

verb to pronounce or articulate words by making the sounds of the letters

adverb in a manner that involves pronouncing or articulating words by making the sounds of the letters

• The teacher spent extra time sounding out each word with the struggling student.
• I'm still sounding out the instructions on this manual.
• I'm just sounding out the new guy to see if he's cool.
• She was carefully sounding out her options before making a decision.

noun a speech sound that begins like a stop (for example, [t]) but releases like a fricative (for example, [s])

• The phoneme /dʒ/ is an affricative sound in English.
• I find it difficult to pronounce affricative sounds correctly.
• Some people struggle with affricatives, but with practice, you can improve.
• Her words had a sharp affricative tone, cutting through the silence.