Phonetic description of [j]

The palatal approximant [j] is closely related to the cardinal vowel [i]. Many phoneticians and phonologists treat [j] as the consonantal equivalent of [i]. In English spelling it is usually represented by the letter , as in ‘you’, ‘yet’, ‘York’, and is often part of the value of the letter  in words like ‘use’, ‘computer’ and ‘cue’.

The palatal approximant [j] is made by raising the tongue body up to the hard palate. At the same time, the lips are spread. The velum is raised, so air does not escape through the nose. The vocal folds are vibrating, so there is voicing.

The palatal approximant shares its articulatory features with cardinal vowel 1, [i]. Produce CV1 and hold it: [i:::]. Now make another vowel sound such as [ɑ:::], and alternate the two sounds. Gradually make the [i] sound shorter, until it is extremely short, and you will end up with something like [jɑ:::jɑ:::]. The palatal approximant can be thought of as a very short, non-syllabic version of [i]. The difference is that the vocalic version is syllabic, and the consonantal version is not. As a consequence, the approximant [j] does not really have a steady state where it is held, but consists mostly of a movement into palatal approximation and, once that has been achieved, a movement out of it.