Tz tz — te zeta
«te zeta» is a digraph of Catalan, the “The Catalan Latin alphabet” script, read as “a voiced dz”. One fused voiced dz: dotze sounds like "DOHD-zuh". For example, in the word “dotze” — twelve. The Catalan alphabet has 35 letters in total. Twelve is dotze, thirteen is tretze — both numbers are heard in this combination. It appears, for example, in the word “dotze” — twelve.
In short
| Character | Tz tz |
| Name | te zeta |
| Sound | a voiced dz |
| What it is | a digraph |
In our course the character comes 34th of 35: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are tx and ig, appears in 16 words of this site.
How it sounds
One fused voiced dz: dotze sounds like "DOHD-zuh"
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- dotzetwelve
The character in the “signs of its own” group
ç is the only letter with a cedilla, l·l the only mid-word dot. The combinations are not letters, but no menu can be read without them.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «te zeta» it is “a voiced dz”, as in the word “dotze”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 35 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Catalan character tz read?
As “a voiced dz” — it is a digraph of the “The Catalan Latin alphabet” script. One fused voiced dz: dotze sounds like "DOHD-zuh". For example, in the word “dotze” — twelve.
What is the letter tz called?
Te zeta. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Catalan script: it is called “te zeta” and reads as “a voiced dz”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can tz be confused with?
Twelve is dotze, thirteen is tretze — both numbers are heard in this combination. Similar characters are best studied side by side and deliberately compared: learned on different days, they stay separate and get mixed up at their first meeting inside a word.