In today's video I'm going to teach you how to pronounce one of the most difficult sounds in
English it's the th sound as in and first I'm going to show you how to pronounce these sounds
and then we'll do a practice with some of the most common words with these sounds in English
first of all when you think about the th sounds you have to know the difference between what
are called voiced and voiceless sounds so voiced sounds means that your voice is working that your
vocal cords are vibrating and when you make the sound there is an audible sound that you can hear
that includes your voice so there are many voice sounds in English like r
and when you say that sound if you put your hand on your vocal cords you can feel them vibrating
and even if you don't put your hand there you can probably notice that when you say
r that your vocal cords are vibrating and that there's voice coming out
now voiceless sounds means that they are made with no voice for example the sound
as in f like the letter f when I make the f sound there's air coming out but my vocal cords are not
vibrating they're not making any noise in fact when we make voiceless sounds the vocal cords
open up and air just comes out so there's no vibrating of the vocal cords the vocal cords are
totally silent now these kinds of sounds exist in all languages maybe you haven't thought about it
before but in English we have these th sounds and it's a pair so one of them is voiceless and the
other one is voiced so first of all you need to know the difference between voiced and voiceless
second you need to know how to make the sound with your tongue and the rest of your mouth
so for the th sound you're going to need to use your tongue but you need to be careful about how
you your tongue to make the sound correctly so to make the th sound you're going to leave your
tongue flat think of it like a pancake or a cookie you're going to leave your tongue totally flat
and then you're going to open your mouth a little bit almost like you're going to smile
and you're going to push your tongue so that it goes in between your upper and lower teeth
and so even when I say the word teeth if you look carefully you can see what my tongue is doing
it stays flat and wide but it moves forward so that it comes in between my upper and lower teeth
but it doesn't stick out right my tongue is not coming out it's just
kind of going in between my upper and lower teeth and then staying there teeth
the next thing you want to notice is that when you make the voiceless h sound that air should
be coming out the whole time that's because this kind of sound is what is called a continuant
that means that the air continues to come out the whole time you make the sound in contrast
there are other sounds in English or in other languages too that are called stops where the
air is stopped from coming out for example when you make a d your tongue goes to make the sound
and the air gets blocked with the th sound it's not like that the air just continues to come out
so when you're practicing this sound you're going to want to put your hand in front of
your mouth and see if you can feel the air on your hand okay the other thing you want to do
is you want to make sure that you have just the right amount of pressure between your teeth and
your tongue so that the air is not blocked the air needs to be able to come out the whole time
you can do it if you practice usually when people are trying to make the th sound for the first time
it gets kind of messy because maybe the tongue is getting stuck between the teeth or maybe the
tongue is sticking too far out but if you practice you'll be able to keep that tongue nice and flat
and wide you'll know that you're going to open your mouth like you're going to make a small smile
and then you're going to put your tongue in between your upper and lower teeth
and the air is just going to come out continuously
keep practicing until you can feel that air coming out put your hand
in front of your mouth and see if you can feel some air coming out
okay so let's practice some words with this voiceless sound
think think
thanks thanks
third third three three
now this one is a little more difficult because you have the r after the th
sound but if you take it step by step you can do it three throw
throw theater theater
thing thing
thirsty
thirsty thousand
thousand now notice that when you're speaking fast you don't need to make that long
sound but when you're learning to say it it's a good idea to practice it to make it more
exaggerated or to make it longer and clearer like that because that's what helps you learn how to
make the sound easily okay let's practice the th sound in the middle of words something something
birthday birthday so that's hard so you might want to just try to take it step by step birthday
marathon marathon toothpaste toothpaste
without without healthy healthy okay next let's try the th sound at the end of words tooth
truth with
with math math path path faith
faith breath
breaths
bath bath
month month mouth mouth
another group of words that has th at the end of the word is ordinal numbers which are uh
fourth fifth etc. so let's practice those together fourth
fifth sixth seventh eighth nine ten again if those are hard for you just try to take it step by step
another thing I want to tell you is that when you make a plural with a word that ends in a th we
often drop that th because it's just too difficult to say them together for example month if we make
it plural months that's hard for me to say so you know what we do we usually just drop the th and
we use the first consonant and the last consonant months so two months two months how about mouths
so for example um babies mouths again that's really hard to say mouths so in that case we
might just drop that th and just say mouse again if we're speaking quickly nobody would even notice
okay now let's look at the voiced th sound so to make this sound you need to do the
same thing that you did for the voiceless sound but just turn on your voice so make your tongue
flat like a pancake put it in between your upper and lower teeth and then you can try
to say the voiceless one first and then turn on your voice to make the voiced like this
this is a pretty quick sound it's not a sound that we hold for a long time
so the placement of the tongue in between the teeth is going to be
important here so let's practice some words with the voiced th sound the the they they them
them there
there now notice for the word there we have three spellings but they all sound exactly the same
there their and they’re themselves themselves
this this
these these
that that those those then then
then then therefore therefore though now this is the word like even though or although though
thus thus thus is a pretty formal word that means therefore
we don't use it a lot in speaking this would be more common in academic or high-level writing
let's try the voiced th sound in the middle of some words leather leather
weather weather
father father
mother mother
brother brother bother bother
and finally the voiced th sound at the end of words this is actually not very
common so there are not many words with this sound at the end of words breathe breathe
notice that breathe is the verb that corresponds to the noun
breath and this is actually a common misspelling in um the United States I'm not sure why but
um this verb should have an e at the end breathe like for example breathe in breathe out
soothe soothe means to calm especially like to um soothe a crying baby soothe
bathe bathe is the verb for bath so take a bath or bathe
teethe so teethe is the verb for when you grow teeth and this is used for babies when
babies are developing their teeth for the first time usually they have a lot of pain and we say
that they are teething so let's practice a few sentences with these words inside
my mother and my brother live in that house over there
My mother and my brother live in that house over there
What do you think of this one?
What do you think of this one? The mother is soothing her teething baby
The mother is soothing her teething baby.
okay so that's not a sentence that you would probably say but it's just a good way to
practice the voiced th in the middle of words I paid thirty dollars for that leather purse
I paid thirty dollars for that leather purse
This town has a population of about thirty
thousand. This town has a population of about thirty thousand
please let me know in the comments below what pronunciation questions you have or what
pronunciation topics you would like me to cover in upcoming videos I love teaching pronunciation
so please let me know what you would like me to help you with thank you so much please give this
video a like and subscribe if you haven't done so already and I'll see you next time take care!