What are hard/soft vowels/consonants?

Answer 1

Terminology varies based on the language described, but there ARE some typical patterns

The MAIN use of "hard" and "soft" applies to CONSONANTS

In most cases, when VOWELS are called "hard" or "soft" it is based on how the CONSONANT just before them is typically pronounced. (The terminology tends ONLY to be applied to the vowels when the pattern is common and extensive. Thus, if only a COUPLE of consonants are involved, the vowels are not described this way -- as is the case in English.)


Typical use of "hard" or "soft" for consonants -- In MOST languages we use this terminology for refers to a distinction between "stops" and "fricatives", with the stops being considered "hard" consonants, the fricatives "soft".

To clarify -- A "stop" is, as the name might suggest, a consonant sound made by completely STOPPING the flow of air, usually by blocking it with the tongue or lips. The main stops include b,p, t,d, k and g. "Fricatives" only partially block the air flow (think "friction") -- examples, related to the stops just listed: f, v, th (with or without the voice), the "ch" sounds of German "ich" or Scottish "loch", as well as the "sibilants" (= "s-sounds" -- s, z, sh and the "zh" sound of the z in "azure").

The MAIN use of the terms "hard" and "soft" in ENGLISH is to distinguish two ways of pronouncing "g" and "c". Here they are, with examples:

HARD g (the stop) = garden, go, gum
SOFT g (like English "j") = gem, giraffe, gym
HARD c (stop /k/) = carpet, coin, cup
SOFT c (/s/ sound) = ceremony, civil, cycle

Now, note the vowels that come AFTER these hard and soft consonants. This is the general pattern -- the "soft" c and g, when used, come after e, i and y (though not in ALL instances of these vowels), but these consonants are ALWAYS "hard" after the remaining vowel sounds.

Again, since this is such a limited and INCONSISTENT feature (since the consonants are NOT ALWAYS "soft" after e,i, y), we do NOT speak of soft and hard VOWELS. But for other languages, in which this sort of thing is more common, that kind of terminology IS sometimes used.

Check out that works with various languages in the following list

French, Italian and Spanish are similar to each other in this, and show the same pattern as English (but with more consistency. Note, for example, how Italian ce, ci is ALWAYS "soft". If they need a "hard" c before these vowels, an H is added in the spelling.
http://french.about.com/library/pronunciation/bl-pronunciation-vowels.htm
http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/pronunciation/vowels-hs.html
http://www.wbopera.org/chorus/italian.html
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Italian/Pronunciation

Russian is a bit different -- it has soft and hard versions of ALL its consonants, though the distinctive sound of a "soft" consonant in this case is different. It adds a slight sound BETWEEN the main vowel sound and the consonant -- example: what English speakers refer to as "nyet" is a "soft n" followed by a "soft e". The "y-" sound between them is much subtler than "nyet" suggests. For more on how all this works in Russian see:
http://books.google.com/books?id=w9AVlDZf9j4C&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=hard+soft+vowels&source=web&ots=uwAn2moqcn&sig=s8khellOWZttmaYBLoCvgv9Xlfc#PPA14,M1
http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/azbuka-e-xe.html

And THEN there are the Turkic languages. Now this is REALLY confusing. It looks to me like someone was attempting to apply the terminology for the Indo-European languages above to a totally different sort of language, to describe sometime rather different. You'll also find that OTHER (more recent?) descriptions of the sounds of these language often use DIFFERENT terminology. The focus in this case is ALL on the VOWELS (and the unusual use of "vowel harmony" in these languages). If you want to study this further, see here:
http://www.turkishclass.com/grammar_vowelHarmony1.htm

FINALLY --and this is to me the MOST confusing!-- is the use of "soft" and "hard" when describing certain other European languages to refer to a completely DIFFERENT distinction between consonants. The following pages on Swedish Dutch and Scottish refer to "unvoiced" stops (p, t, k) as "hard consonants", and the "voiced" versions of these stops (b, d, g) as "soft consonants". I have NO idea why! (I actually would have thought that, if you're going to use "hard" and "soft" for this distinction, the "harder" ones would be those that USE the voice!)
http://www2.hhs.se/isa/swedish/chap9.htm
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1409973
http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=SpellingAndPronunciation.23
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/zet/concise.htm

Answer 2

Consonants Definition

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What are hard/soft vowels/consonants?

Answer 4

Hard Consonants

Answer 5

long and short vowel sounds - long sounds say the name of the vowel.

hard consonants are like d as in dog, g as in gorilla - where there are vocal vibrations.
soft consonants - G as in George, c as in cease.

Answer 6

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/awUpC

What language? I know them in Spanish, but not English--do they exist in English? I'd like to know, too... Edit 11/18: Actually, I have seen reference to hard and soft quite a bit, even along side other linguistic terminology so I think it is not useless. However, it seems more common in other languages. Lots of references to it in Russian language. Also in Bulgarian and Dutch. The only example of hard vs. soft consonant I can think of in English is C which can either be pronounced like "s" (soft) or "k" (hard). I also found the following: From: Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | Date: 1998 | Author: TOM McARTHUR HARD AND SOFT. (1) Qualities of the letters C and G that depend on whether they are pronounced like k or s in the case of c or like the g in get or the j in jet in the case of g. When hard, c and g are pronounced as velar stops, as in cap/gap; when soft, c is pronounced as a sibilant, g as an affricate, as in cell/gell. (2) In phonetics, in the description of consonants, hard is an older term for fortis (articulated with considerable muscular tension or force of breath or plosion, as with the voiceless consonants of English, such as /p, t, k, s/) and soft for lenis (articulated with little tension, as with the voiced consonants, such as /b, d, g, z/).

Answer 7

Hard consonants are those that can be voiced without using the vocal cords. Soft consonants are voiced:

Like "f" is a hard consonant because to say the letter f in a word, you don't use your vocal cords. "z" is a soft consonant because you have to use your vocal cords to say it.

Answer 8

Hard consonants are those that begin with a vowel sound, like m, r, s and soft ones end in a vowel sound, like b, k, j.

Answer 9

These are words that people use to talk about sounds when they don't know technical language for describing sounds. These terms are basically useless.

Answer 10

That's a good point