Voiced describes sounds made when your vocal cords vibrate. Put your fingers gently on your throat and say “zzzzz” like a buzzing bee. Feel that rumbling? That's your vocal cords vibrating, making a voiced sound. Now make a snake hiss: “sssss.” No rumbling this time. That's an unvoiced sound.

Many letter sounds come in voiced and unvoiced pairs. The b in “bat” is voiced (you can feel the vibration), while the p in “pat” is unvoiced (same mouth position, but no vibration). Try it: d and t, g and k, v and f. Each pair uses the same tongue and lip positions, but one vibrates and one doesn't.

Understanding voiced and unvoiced sounds helps when you're learning to read, spell, or speak another language. It's also why your throat sometimes feels tired after talking for hours: those vocal cords have been vibrating thousands of times per second to produce all those voiced sounds. When you whisper, you're deliberately making most sounds unvoiced, which is why whispering feels so different from normal speech.