Lesson 15 / 22
/s/ — /z/
Listen to each sound, compare mouth positions, and practise from words to sentences.
British IPA notation: /s/ · /z/American audio: see /siː/ · zoo /zuː/
The reference chart uses British IPA. English RankUp uses American audio and speech recognition, so some vowels have different symbols and pronunciations.
1 / 2
/s/
see /siː/
Mouth and tongue position
Tongue tip near the upper ridge, air hisses through a narrow gap; no voicing.
Word practice
see
Sentence practice
I can see the sea.
Mouth-position video (British) — BBC Learning English
2 / 2
/z/
zoo /zuː/
Mouth and tongue position
Same position as /s/ but voiced, producing a buzzing sound.
Word practice
zoo
Sentence practice
We went to the zoo.
Mouth-position video (British) — BBC Learning English
Speech recognition is unavailable in this browser. You can still listen and repeat.
The microphone recognizes words and sentences, not individual IPA sounds. Use its result only to check what the recognizer heard.