There are 24 consonant sounds or phonemes in Standard English.

When you make one of these sounds your neck, lips, tongue, teeth, cheeks, etc all move – so each sound has a matching lipshape known as a viseme.

Some of these visemes look very similar so it is generally accepted that there are only 12 consonant visemes.

We can divide the consonant visemes into the:

• visibles
• less visibles
• nearly invisibles

Visibles

1. p/b/m – for example: pat, bat, mat

2. f/v – for example: few, view

3. w/qu – for example: whale, quail

4. sh/ch/j – for example: sheep, cheap, jeep

5. th – for example: this

6. l – for example: lovely

Less visibles

7. r – for example: rare

8. t/d/n – for example: tame, dame, name

9. s/z – for example: sip, zip

Nearly invisibles

10. k/g/ng – for example: pick, pig, ping

11. h – for example: hardy

12. y – for example: yellow

Watch the video below to see these lipshapes and/or download a copy of a handout summarising the information above – Sounds and Lipshapes