Explain the place of articulation for speech sounds

1. 
   Explain the place of articulation for speech sounds
   

The diagram below gives a view of the human mouth with arrows pointing to the places of articulation used in English.

In other words, these are the places where the constrictions and obstructions of air occur.

2. 
   Explain the manner of articulation for speech sounds
   

It's often challenging to know how sounds of language are articulated just by listening to them.

As it so happens, the Manners and Places of articulation give you a lot of information about the articulation of a sound which would otherwise go unnoticed.

Well, you’re in for a treat, because I'm going to give you an up-to-date and comprehensive list of all the manners of articulation. I've also added examples in English and in other languages when none were present in English.

Nasals

First, there are the nasal consonants.

The distinctive feature of nasal consonants is that you let air out of your nose as you pronounce them.

For example, the nasal consonants [m] and [n] are quite common in languages and are certainly found in English.

Let's take a word that starts with M in English such as man.

Pronounce only the M in man and put your finger right in front of your nostrils. You should feel some air coming out.

This tells you that there is an element of nasality to this consonant sound.

For nonnasal consonant sounds, there may be a bit of air coming out of the nose, but the flow of air is more pronounced with nasal consonants (and nasal vowels, for that matter).

Let's move on to the plosives.

Plosives or Stops

There are quite a few plosives in English.

Basically, these are consonants where air is blocked at the place of articulation to accumulate pressure and it is then released in one instant.

Just pronounce words with D's, B's and K's and you'll notice the single pulse of air being ejected as you pronounce these letters.

Here are a few words so that you can check for yourself: bag, gap, lack.3