Speech Work: Consonants /p/ and /f/

/p/

The upper and the lower lips are brought together to obstruct the outflow of air. The spelling symbol for /p/ can be found in – stop, lap, pet, apart. It is therefore called a voiceless bilabial plosive. To produce /p/, there is no vibration of the vocal cords.

/p/ is not pronounced in words like lamp, psalm, receipt, physics.

More examples on /p/

pin, slip, shape, apple, peach, apply, spill, push, people, plead.

/f/

The production of /f/ involves a partial obstruction caused by the contact of the teeth and the lip resulting in a continuous frictional noise when the airstream passes. There is no vibration as a result of the widening of the glottis during production. It is a voiceless sound and it has different spelling symbols which are listed below:

“f” – flower, floor, fee, fine, fork

“ff” – offer, affair, coffee, office

“ph” – phase, pharaoh, physics, sphere

“gh” – cough, laugh, tough, rough 

More examples on /f/ at the Initial and Final end.

Initial	Final
Floor	Trophy
Fork	Rough
Fan	Graph
Front	Laugh
Fill	Tough
Face	Safe