Place and Manner of Articulation: An English Consonant Chart

✓ Reviewed against International Phonetic Association chart, ASHA Selected Phonological Patterns, ASHA Practice PortalEvidence level consensusLast reviewed October 14, 2026Published October 14, 2026

Every English consonant is described by three features: place (where it is made — lips, teeth, ridge, palate, soft palate, throat), manner (how air flows — stop, fricative, affricate, nasal, approximant), and voicing. This chart lays out all 24 and shows how errors like fronting change one feature.

The English consonant chart

This chart follows the layout of the International Phonetic Association’s consonant chart: places run left to right from the lips back to the throat, manners run top to bottom, and in each cell the voiceless sound is on the left and the voiced sound on the right.¹

English consonants by manner (rows) and place (columns), voiceless before voiced.
Manner	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive (stop)	p b			t d			k g
Nasal	m			n			ŋ (ng)
Fricative		f v	θ ð (th)	s z	ʃ ʒ (sh, zh)			h
Affricate					tʃ dʒ (ch, j)
Approximant				ɹ (r)		j (y)
Lateral approximant				l

English consonants by manner (rows) and place (columns), voiceless before voiced.¹

W is not in a single column: the IPA chart lists /w/ separately as a voiced labial-velar approximant, made with rounded lips and the back of the tongue raised at the same time.¹

The places, in plain language

Bilabial — both lips: p, b, m (and w, with the back of the tongue).
Labiodental — top teeth on the lower lip: f, v.
Dental — tongue tip at the teeth: voiceless and voiced TH.
Alveolar — tongue tip at the bumpy ridge behind the top teeth: t, d, n, s, z, l, and r (/ɹ/, which the IPA chart lists as an alveolar approximant).
Postalveolar — just behind the ridge: sh, zh, ch, j.
Palatal — middle of the tongue to the hard palate: y.
Velar — back of the tongue to the soft palate: k, g, ng.
Glottal — at the vocal folds: h.

Free target-word generator

Build a word list by sound and position in seconds — free, no account.

Try it free →

How speech errors change one feature

Phonological patterns described by the feature they change (patterns and examples from ASHA).
Pattern	Feature changed	Example
Fronting	Place — velar replaced by a front (e.g., alveolar) sound	“tat” for “cat”; “date” for “gate”
Stopping	Manner — fricative or affricate replaced by a stop	“pun” for “fun”; “tee” for “see”
Gliding	Manner — liquid (r, l) replaced by a glide (w, y)	“wabbit” for “rabbit”
Deaffrication	Manner — affricate replaced by a fricative	“ship” for “chip”
Velar assimilation	Place — a sound takes the velar place of a neighbor	“kack” for “tack”

Phonological patterns described by the feature they change (patterns and examples from ASHA).²

Features also guide therapy. ASHA describes maximal oppositions as contrasting a target with a sound that differs in voice, place, and manner — for example, “mall” versus “call,” where /m/ is a voiced bilabial nasal and /k/ a voiceless velar stop.³

Frequently asked questions

What is the place of articulation?＋

Where in the mouth or throat the airflow is narrowed or stopped: the two lips (bilabial), lip and teeth (labiodental), tongue and teeth (dental), tongue and the ridge behind the teeth (alveolar), just behind the ridge (postalveolar), the hard palate (palatal), the soft palate (velar), or the vocal folds (glottal).

What is the manner of articulation?＋

How the air is shaped: fully stopped and released (plosives or stops, like p), squeezed through a narrow gap (fricatives, like s), stopped then released as friction (affricates, like ch), sent through the nose (nasals, like m), or only slightly narrowed (approximants, like w, y, r, and l).

How do place and manner relate to speech errors?＋

Many named error patterns change one feature. Fronting changes place (back sounds made at the front: “tat” for “cat”), stopping changes manner (a fricative made as a stop: “pun” for “fun”), and gliding changes a liquid into a glide (“wabbit” for “rabbit”).

Why do SLPs use place, manner, and voicing?＋

They describe exactly how two sounds differ, which helps choose word pairs and cues. ASHA’s description of maximal oppositions, for example, contrasts sounds that differ in voice, place, and manner at once.