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Britannica Sources used in this answer

How are affricates such as the sounds in church and jam produced?

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Diagram of a human head in profile showing the location of vocal organs and possible places of articulation for speech sounds, with labels for lips, teeth, tongue, palate, uvula, pharynx, and vocal cords, and numbered regions corresponding to types of articulation such as bilabial, alveolar, and velar.
pronunciation Diagram depicting the location of human vocal organs and possible places of articulation used for speech.

An affricate is a consonant sound produced through a two-stage articulatory process.1

The production of these sounds occurs as follows:

  • Initial Stage (Stop): The process begins as a stop, where the vocal organs create a complete obstruction of the breath stream.1
  • Concluding Stage (Fricative): The obstruction is then released into a fricative, characterized by an incomplete closure that allows air to pass through a narrow opening, generating audible friction.12

For example, the ch sound in "church" is phonetically produced as a t sound followed by a sh sound. Similarly, the j sound in "jam" is produced as a d sound followed by the zh sound (as heard in "azure").1