Affricate consonant

An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often [t] or [d]) but ends with a fricative release. The English sounds spelt "ch" and "j" (transcribed [tS] and [dZ]), and German z [ts] are typical affricates.

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Note that a fricative is a single speech segment, not a sequence of two sounds. In some languages (e.g. Polish) affricate and "stop plus fricative" clusters contrast very clearly, as in czysta 'clean (f.)' [tS...] versus trzysta 'three hundred' [t|S...] (the vertical line separates segments).

For special types of affricates, see also: clicks