With what word should you see a candle flicker or feel a puff of air?
To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin [pʰɪn] and then spin [spɪn]. One should either feel a puff of air or see a flicker of the candle flame with pin that one does not get with spin. In most dialects of English, the initial consonant is aspirated in pin and unaspirated in spin.