What is aspiration?
Q: What is aspiration?
A: Aspiration is a feature in languages where saying a consonant gives out a puff of air.
Q: How can you tell if a sound is aspirated or unaspirated?
A: You can tell if a sound is aspirated or unaspirated by danging a piece of paper in front of your mouth and seeing if it moves when you say the consonant. If the paper moves, then it is an aspirated, or breathy, consonant. If the paper does not move, then it is unaspirated, or not breathy.
Q: What are some examples of aspirated sounds in English?
A: In English, voiceless stops and fricatives that happen at the beginning of a word are aspirated, which are the sounds 'p', 't', 'k', and 'ch' (which are written as /p/, /t/, /k/, /t͡ʃ/ in IPA in the same order).
Q: How do you write an aspirated sound using IPA?
A: An aspirated sound can be written with an ʰ symbol afterwards using IPA; for example, /pʰ/, /tʰ/, /kʰ/, and /t͡ʃʰ/.
Q: Are there any voiced sounds that are aspirated in English?
A: No, there are no voiced sounds that are aspirated in English.
Q: Does Hindi have any aspirate voiced sounds?
A: Yes, Hindi has some voiced sounds that are normally written with an 'h' after the consonant letter. For example "Bhattacharya" would be written as "/bʱ/" using IPA.
Q: How do Chinese languages represent aspiration differently than other languages?
A:In Mandarin Chinese there are no voiced stops, fricatives or affricates so they differentiate between them by aspiration instead. In Pinyin they write them like voiceless sounds in English while unaspirate ones like voiced ones; for example "Gaokao" would be written as "/kau̯.kʰau̯/" using IPA and "Kaok'ao" using Wade-Giles spelling
