Whenever I try to search this up, I get explanations like “your throat vibrates” but that’s super abstract and hard to visualize. Is there an easier way someone can explain this to me?
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Voiceless: you make the sound with no vocal fold action. Just moving your mouth parts and pushing air up from your lungs.
Voiced: folds get in there and fuckin’ vibrate that air as it’s moving past, so your mouth parts get a bit of extra personality to work with. Lil extra kick in their cappuccino, if ya know what I mean, a little razzmatazz, a bit of the ol’ zhooby zhoo, the boopeeboopeeboo, a ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop bop bodda bope, bop ba bodda bope, I’m the scatman, you picking up what I’m putting down? I really hope not because this became completely deranged. Sorry. I’m leaving it in though.
Anyway, you should be able to feel when your vocal folds are involved in producing a sound and when they’re not. Hold your fingees to your throat and make a bunch of noises, like “sh” (voiceless) and “zh” (like in “casual”) (voiced). You really can’t say “sh” with a voice, ‘cause that turns it into “zh.”
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