ch

pronunciation

How to pronounce ch in British English: UK word uk audio image

How to pronounce ch in American English: US word us audio image

Word Origin

ch
digraph used in Old French for the "tsh" sound. In some French dialects, including that of Paris (but not that of Picardy), Latin ca- became French "tsha." This was introduced to English after the Norman Conquest, in words borrowed from Old French such as chaste, charity, chief (adj.). Under French influence, -ch- also was inserted into Anglo-Saxon words that had the same sound (such as bleach, chest, church) which in Old English still was written with a simple -c-, and into those that had formerly been spelled with a -c- and pronounced "k" such as chin and much. As French evolved, the "t" sound dropped out of it, so in later loan-words from France ch- has only the sound "sh-" (chauffeur, machine (n.), chivalry, etc.). It turns up as well in words from classical languages (chaos, echo, etc.). Most uses of -ch- in Roman Latin were in words from Greek, which would be pronounced correctly as "k" + "h," as in blockhead, but most Romans would have said merely "k." Sometimes ch- is written to keep -c- hard before a front vowel, as still in modern Italian. In some languages (Welsh, Spanish, Czech) ch- can be treated as a separate letter and words in it are alphabetized after -c- (or, in Czech and Slovak, after -h-). The sound also is heard in more distant languages (as in cheetah, chintz), and the digraph also is used to represent the sound in Scottish loch.

Example

1. Ch has defended his tough tactics .
2. Mr pi ch 's passion for engineering pervades the group .
3. Mr pi ch 's plan was for vw to become the world 's biggest carmaker by volume by 2018 .
4. He took advantage of another family feud to take control of ch ?
5. Don 't know where this is coming from , since ch does definitely exist in spanish .

more: >How to Use "ch" with Example Sentences