In this lesson, we’ll focus on the place of articulation of plosives in English. Plosives are also called stops. Whilst all plosives share the same manner of articulation, they have different places of articulation.

In total, we have 6 plosives in English, and we classify them into 3 groups, each group contains a pair:

• /p/ & /b/ are both formed with our lips together which are then released. The place of articulation is therefore bilabial. /p/ is a voiceless consonant, whilst /b/ is the voiced counterpart.
• The next pair, /t/ and /d/ are both formed when the tip of our tongue touches the little bump behind our teeth. This bump is called the alveolar ridge and so the place of articulation is alveolar. Again, /t/ is voiceless whereas /d/ is voiced. Please be aware that there are phonemic variants for these two sounds, e.g. in Irish English. These would have a slightly different place of articulation.
• The final pair, /k/ and /g/ are formed as the back of our tongue moves towards the soft palate. The place of articulation for these two sounds is velar. /k/ is voiceless, and /g/ is voiced. 
  

Notice how we move from the front of our mouth to the back: bilabial, alveolar and velar. And each pair has a voiceless sound and its voiced counterpart.

Learn more about the manner of articulation of consonants in English here!

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