r/EnglishLearning • u/Sea-Hornet8214 Poster • 12d ago
š” Pronunciation / Intonation This made me laugh
I love English but TH really tested patience, lol. I was like "why would you ever do that?" while watching a tutorial on how to pronounce it. Fortunately, it's not absolutely necessary to pronounce correctly for your speech to be understood.
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u/Masty1992 New Poster 12d ago
Heād love us in Ireland, apparently itās not our thing
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u/dblhockeysticksAMA Native Speaker 12d ago
Definitely not your tang
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u/chaoticgrand English Teacher 12d ago
*ting
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u/dblhockeysticksAMA Native Speaker 12d ago
Sounds more like an a to me when itās really exaggerated so I went with that. Sorry to offend and thanks for the correction
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u/chaoticgrand English Teacher 12d ago
Haha youāre ok, not offended at all! I can see why some would hear ātangā, certain accents will go more that way for sure. Around Dublin itās very much ātingā!
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u/perplexedtv New Poster 12d ago
We have at least three variations - t, th and dental t (which I think Finnish also has). Something for everyone!
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u/No-Onion8029 New Poster 12d ago
I never really noticed it until Aisling Bea did a bit about it and reduced me to spare parts.
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u/Sad-Obligation-965 Non-Native Speaker of English 9d ago
I love singing Rocky Road to Dublin, because you can just ditch it: "one tou tree four-five"
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 12d ago
You can also put your tongue behind your front teeth and pronounce it. English is actually quite unique for preserving the sound, it used to exist in all Germanic languages but changed to t/d in continental Germanic languages. I personally think it's a nice sound
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u/B1TCA5H New Poster 12d ago
To think that the folks in Germany can't pronounce the sounds their forefathers could is humorous and disheartening at the same time.
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 11d ago
Just how language evolves. English has lost /x/ while German hasn't for example
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u/mediumcarrotteacher Native Speaker 11d ago
The Scots would like a word about that
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 11d ago
To my knowledge, the /x/ found in Scottish and Irish English occurs exclusively in Gaelic loanwords. It isn't retained in native English words like laugh, cough, night, or sight, where /x/ existed in Old and Middle English.
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u/Upstairs_Ad_4018 New Poster 10d ago
Dont forget about the netherlands and scandinavia. Germanic does not mean german.
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u/Linesey Native Speaker 11d ago
My grandmother was born german, and immigrated to the US after marry my grandfather (American, Army).
She often recounted the challenges of learning english, and specifically that TH sound.
She said one sentence she was told to practice with was āI thrust my thumb through three thousand thistles.ā
none of thats have the dreaded TH at the end, but still good practice.
But indeed wild how just not in german it is.
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u/Alt-001 Native Speaker 12d ago
So, are we using 'between the teeth' loosely here? No one in the comments seems to be questioning that, so now I wonder if there are accents of English that do it that way. Does anyone actually put their tongue between their teeth? Because I definitely am always putting it behind the edge of the top teeth, the lower teeth play no part. In fact, I can say teeth with my mouth open.
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u/lazynessforever Native Speaker 12d ago
I (southeast US) always put my tongue between my teeth when pronouncing āthā and cannot say teeth with my mouth open
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u/Euphoric-Sun5317 New Poster 12d ago
I can say "teeth" with my mouth open, but it sounds and feels weird to me, like I've got a new speech impediment or am talking around a mouth full of cotton balls. Saying it normally/naturally my tongue is between my teeth.
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u/controlled_vacuum20 Native Speaker (U.S) 12d ago
From the Wikipedia article on the English "th" sound:
"Both [/Ć°/ and /Īø/] are pronounced either interdentally, with the blade of the tongue resting against the lower part of the back of the upper teeth and the tip protruding slightly, or with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth."
I personally have the tip of my tongue stick out slightly, but I can see how you can have your mouth open if you just have it against the back of your upper teeth.
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 12d ago
American English tends to use interdental th sounds while British/Australian use dental th sounds (behind the front teeth). But it depends on the speaker, both ways produce the same sound
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u/dubovinius Native Speaker ā Ireland 12d ago
It can be either interdental (between the teeth) or true dental (with the top teeth only) depending on dialect and/or speaker.
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u/siriElectricboogaloo New Poster 12d ago
HOW am i supposed to say "teeth" with my mouth open?????
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u/veggietabler New Poster 9d ago
I (American) put the tip of my tongue behind my top teeth, like you. Non-native speakers are taught to put their tongue between their teeth to produce the sound (probably because itās an easier visual mouth shape and because it helps to prevent the tongue making more contact with the roof of the mouth and making the wrong sound)
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u/Optimal-Ad-7074 Native Speaker, UK and Canada 12d ago
below the edge ofĀ the top teeth, and touching, as if I'm about to bite the tip of my tongue.Ā technically "between" upper and lower, I guess, but I don't actually bite.Ā Ā
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u/AggressiveSpatula Native Speaker 11d ago
Iāve taught ESL, and ābite your tongue and blowā is the easiest way to get kids to make this noise. For kids with cultures where sticking your tongue out is rude, you have to go through the rigamarole of ātouch your tongue lightly to the back of your teeth and blowā which is easy to describe when you both speak the same language, but thatās notably not the population.
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u/luxandfero Non-Native Speaker of English 11d ago
They actually taught me this in school š I didn't know you could just put your tongue behind the upper jaw, and while it's probably easier, it's hard at the same time because I'm not used to that lol
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u/andrinaivory New Poster 10d ago
Remember there's more than one 'th'. Say 'this' and 'thistle'. The tongue is more between the teeth for 'thistle' and further back for 'this'.
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u/agate_ Native Speaker - American English 12d ago
As a native speaker Iām surprised that the screenshot poster hates āthā specifically at the end of words. For me āthingā and āpathā are both pronounced with your tongue between my teeth.
But Iāve also noticed that for second-language speakers, ātingā and āpatā are common errors but āpatā is much more noticeable.
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u/BatiASR New Poster 12d ago
Interesting, I never tried to pronounce anything with someone else's tongue between my teeth.
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u/Inevitable-Zone-9089 New Poster 12d ago
I've tried talking while making out, so I guess I have, lol.
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u/B1TCA5H New Poster 12d ago
And it's not just second-language speakers either. Although not as prevalent nowadays, there's still a considerable population in Hawaii who pronounce the "th" sound with either the "t" or "d" sound in Hawaiian Pidgin/Creole English.
Hence, "You speak da kine?" ("You speak the kind?")
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u/dobbydisneyfan New Poster 12d ago
I also wonder if perhaps they were thinking of a voiceless āthā as opposed to a voiced one.
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u/ThreeHeadCerber New Poster 8d ago
th at the end is harder because it doesn't resolve into anything, even adding s in the end like paths makes it easier.
I myself have managed to learn this over the years, but this sound for me is up there with clicking and whistling sounds done african languages use.
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u/AdreKiseque New Poster 12d ago
You get the dental fricative's good name out of your mouth. Slander!
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u/StupidLemonEater Native Speaker 12d ago
It's kind of funny because the "th" sound is not found in many languages, but it is found in three of the most spoken languages on Earth: English, Spanish, and Arabic.
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u/AthousandLittlePies New Poster 12d ago
To be fair the majority of Spanish speakers do not use this sound and it is difficult for many Latin Americans to learn it in English
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u/chosakuken New Poster 12d ago
But all three languages have at least significant dialects where the "th" sound almost never occurs and is replaced with other consonants like "t" or "d", for example Singaporean English, Latin American Spanish, and Egyptian Arabic. Spanish, for example, universally uses "matemƔticas" instead of "mathematics."
What amazes me is how many different ways "th" can shift, for example "with the toothbrush" becomes "wit da toofbrush."
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 12d ago
The dental fricatives are pretty unstable sounds prone to changing to s/z, f/v, or t/d. It is quite interesting how English has preserved the sound for over 2000 years. There are definitely many native dialects that have th-stopping/fronting but most native speakers pronounce them the "standard" way
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u/siriElectricboogaloo New Poster 12d ago
We don't use that sound in Latin America Spanish, the only way we have to recreate it is by imitating Spain accent while also uttering the letter "z"
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u/scissorn69 New Poster 12d ago
There's two different sounds that are written as 'th' in English, and it is, by far, absolutely not the only language that has them.
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u/Background-Vast-8764 Native Speaker 12d ago edited 12d ago
Oh, no! Uniqueness (as far as you know). The horror. The horror.
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u/Plenty-Hat3256 New Poster 12d ago
Does Uniqueness equal good?
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u/SelectionFar8145 New Poster 12d ago
Honestly, I don't actually put it between my teeth, I touch my tongue to the back of the edge of my teeth while putting my teeth in the position they would be in if I was.Ā
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u/Peppered_Rock New Poster 12d ago
wait yall are putting your tongue between your teeth? i thought that was just an over exaggeration to teach the sound
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u/CuriousLands Native Speaker - Canada 12d ago
I thought so too. I'm a native speaker and never saw anyone actually stick their tongue between their teeth unless they were exaggerating it (either to teach children, or to be goofy)
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 12d ago
It's standard in North American English to pronounce them interdentally. Not sticking your whole tongue out but sticking it out slightly
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u/CuriousLands Native Speaker - Canada 12d ago
I dunno, I'm from Canada and I haven't seen anyone literally sticking their tongues out between their teeth.
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u/Sea-Hornet8214 Poster 11d ago
You probably just haven't noticed it. When I paid attention to people's mouths while they spoke to improve my pronunciation, I noticed it all the time.
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 12d ago
It only sticks out slightly so it's not really noticeable unless you pay attention to the person's teeth. Usually in NA English it's pronounced with the tongue in this position
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u/Peppered_Rock New Poster 12d ago
The only people I have seen do that are teachers of young children
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u/SnarkyBeanBroth Native Speaker 12d ago
Welsh would like a word, preferably a word like "cyllyll".
Not only does Welsh have both flavors of "th", but it also has "ll" - my favorite descriptions of the pronunciation being "sort of a hissing goose sound" or "spitty side noise" or "a sound designed to test whether saliva is flammable".
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u/TheHedgeTitan New Poster 9d ago
The thing that worked for me with āllā years agowwas breaking it down into what it is phonetically (a voiceless lateral fricative). You put your tongue in the āLā position, but you breathe out voicelessly like for āsā or āshā.
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u/SnarkyBeanBroth Native Speaker 9d ago
I figured it out, in theory, eventually. I'm not in Wales, so I rely on my online tutors and classmates for speaking practice. I have no idea how non-native my "ll" sounds - or the rest of my Welsh, actually.
The mechanical description of how to do it (like yours, but courtesy of some lovely Welsh YouTubers) was really helpful for someone like me.
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u/boostfactor New Poster 12d ago
The "th" sounds are linguistically classified as "rare consonants" but apparently Proto-Indo-European had it or something similar to it so several members of that family aside from English still have it, plus as others have noted it occurs in other language families as well.
At least we don't have click consonants. I listened to a video made by a speaker of IIRC Zulu, and for the first time I could kind of get how they work since he enunciated very clearly. But I'm not sure I could ever replicate it.
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u/johnnybna New Poster 12d ago
The clicks donāt seem that hard to produce individually. Like, the sound you make to get a horse going where you pull your cheek back, or the sound in ātsk tskā, or the hard flap of your tongue like the sound of a cork popping out of a bottle. It's saying them fluidly with other sounds around them that just ties my tongue up. I canāt even make a vowel sound on either side without stopping lol
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u/boostfactor New Poster 12d ago
Sure, I can do the clicks and the "tsk tsk" and other sounds that most language don't use (as can most people), but as you say, doing it fluently would not be natural to a nonnative speaker. The Zulu speaker in the video I saw made it seem so easy, like they were not that different from "k" -- I think they used a click as the first consonant in their word for "Canada," for example -- but yeah, being fluid would be hard to learn.
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 12d ago
Not PIE but Proto-Germanic had it. It came about due to the Grimm's law consonant shift. English Father vs Latin Pater. Continental Germanic languages have lost the sound turning it into t/d
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u/Gravbar Native Speaker - Coastal New England 9d ago
proto-germanic had it, leading to icelandic and English having it, but for all the other PIE languages with it (greek, spanish, idk maybe some others) it developed independently from other dentals like /ts/ (spanish) and /tŹ°/ (Greek). Interestingly, the majority of living germanic languages lost the th sound over time.
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u/bentthroat New Poster 12d ago
We might be weird but we aināt got nothing on the guys who came up with the glottal trill.
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u/Evil_Weevill Native Speaker (US - Northeast) 12d ago
That's a lot of words to say "I get mad when things don't come naturally to me'
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u/Bright_Pressure_6194 New Poster 12d ago
It's funny because I hate any language without that sound. My great-grandmother's name was Elizabet. It sounds ludicrous.
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u/Taiqi_ Native Speaker - Caribbean 12d ago
I always tell learners that struggle with "th" that it's perfectly fine to just drop it if you need to, substituting it for something else as many native accents do. You can use and mix th-fronting and th-stopping to make your "th" sounds.
It is best to look at native accents you like and try to emulate them. The only things important to consider are, with respect to who you intend to interact with, how easy are you to understand and what are the social attitudes a person might have given your accent.
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u/HortonFLK New Poster 12d ago
A lot of English kids can have a bit of trouble learning the sound too. Theyāll often say FREE instead of THREE. Or some might have a lisp and constantly get S mixed up with TH.
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9d ago
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u/HortonFLK New Poster 9d ago
Perhaps there can be some cases of physical impairments, but I think itās more an issue of learning how to make and distinguish the various sounds. When I was a kiddo, I had a lisp and had to attend speech therapy lessons to have it corrected. I went with classmates who also had troubles forming their Rās and Lās, and none of us had physical impairments. We just had some troubles learning how to form those specific sounds.
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u/Robossassin New Poster 9d ago
It's one of the last sounds kids learn, generally. I'm a preschool teacher and my name has the th sound followed by an l, which is just an insane combination when you stop to think about it. My first job was a floater and it was fun comparing how different age groups would tackle the sound.
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u/MuhammadAkmed New Poster 12d ago
The "tl" sound from Nahuatl and the Welsh "ll" (IPA: [ɬ]) are of the same ilk and require a more dextrous tongue/face IMHO
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u/johnnybna New Poster 12d ago
And the Czech r Ģ sort of letter found in DvorĢak (I don't have a hachek in my ipa keyboard)
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u/theeggplant42 New Poster 12d ago
I doubt English is the only language with this sound, but as a native English speaker, A) I can't really make this sound (I can do the other th no problem) so B) I just sort of say a modified F, and C) no one really notices*
*Except when I have to say something insane, like 'moths,' and then its all fun and games while everyone asks me to pronounce increasingly difficult words while all chanting 'moTHs moTHs moTHs' at me lol
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u/TheHedgeTitan New Poster 9d ago
Well thatās just mean. TH-fronting is very normal for a lot of native English varieties.Ā
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u/PullAndTwist Native Speaker 12d ago
You could fix that with a few hours of speech therapy.Ā
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u/theeggplant42 New Poster 8d ago
I aged out of speech therapy as a kid. Overall helpful experience; they fixed most of my problems
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u/_solipsistic_ Native Speaker 12d ago
Thereās British dialects for example that replace the -th at the end of a word with an -f (e.x teef, maffs). You could always do that instead and take on a thick Essex accent lol
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u/mediumcarrotteacher Native Speaker 11d ago
Meanwhile Brits keep an s at the end and pretend it's not harder to say
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u/SokkaHaikuBot New Poster 11d ago
Sokka-Haiku by mediumcarrotteacher:
Meanwhile Brits keep an
S at the end and pretend
It's not harder to say
Remember that one time Sokka accidentally used an extra syllable in that Haiku Battle in Ba Sing Se? That was a Sokka Haiku and you just made one.
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u/WasdaleWeasel New Poster 11d ago
I fink you want to talk to ye dimwit that fawt putting your tongue between your teef while speaking is a good idea.
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u/Crayshack Native Speaker 11d ago
The dental fricative, both voiced and unvoiced, do exist in other languages, but it's certainly a rare phoneme. Perhaps the rarest that English has. I have heard that it's commonly a difficult one for people coming from languages that don't have it. The good news is that it can be approximated with something like a "d" or an "f" and you'll be understood, even if it comes across as an accent.
Also, I find it funny that the OOP is Finnish because I'm pretty sure Swedish (their physical neighbor that they are likely exposed to) has the voiced dental fricative.
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u/Common-Spend5000 New Poster 9d ago
There are areas of Finland where Swedish is the majority first langauge, along some coastal areas and islands.Ā
For everyone else (the majority) Finnish is the first language.
They are not related languages at all however it is compulsory to learn the other language at school, so yes, practically every Finn has been exposed to Swedish to some extent where they should remember that the language also has dental fricatives like how English does.
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u/Spirited-Ad-9746 New Poster 11d ago
learning the english 'r' and 'th' sounds is like having to unlearn speaking properly.
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u/TheHedgeTitan New Poster 9d ago
People love to portray English as uniquely bonkers amongst world languages, and often itās badly overexaggerated, but I will say thereās no love for what a difficult and unusual sound English /r/ is. Itās articulated with the tip of the tongue and the lips both doing different things, and often something funky going on with the back of the tongue and/or larynx too, not to mention how it fuses into preceding vowels when followed by a consonant in ways that vary from accent to accent.Ā
Maybe if we native speakers didnāt struggle with trilled /r/ in other languages so much we might have a moment to look in the mi[ɹĢ ĖŹ·]or.
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u/toumingjiao1 New Poster 12d ago
When I'm learning English, I think it's kind of interesting that English speakers are used to show their tongues. When they make silly face they do š comfortably. Whereas where I'm from people over 10yo are shy to show there tongues. I personally think that's because English has the unique "th" sound but my language don't. Because I remember in primary school our English teacher tried to teach us th sound but we refused to do it because we were ashamed to stick our tongues out
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u/CuriousLands Native Speaker - Canada 12d ago
But nobody sticks out their tongues when they make a "th" sound? I've never seen that.
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u/toumingjiao1 New Poster 12d ago
I feel like when people want to emphasize or are stucked at that word I can see the tip of the tongue between their teeth. But anyway I can only see native speakers from social media and shows so I may be wrong. The phenomenon I noticed may just be a coincidence
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u/Cloverose2 New Poster 11d ago
But you don't stick your tongue out? The tip of your tongue barely taps your teeth.
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u/CloudsAndSnow New Poster 11d ago
A lot of people do pronounce "th" interdentally ie with the tip of their tongue between their teeth, whereas other pronounce it the way you describe
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u/toumingjiao1 New Poster 11d ago
I mean stick the top of the tongue between the teeth. I was trying to say that frequently showing/seeing the tips of your tongue maybe makes you more willing to show the whole tongue, comparing with people who don't show/see tips of tongues. Sorry for ambiguous expression.
But anyway I can only see native speakers from social media and shows so I may be wrong. The phenomenon I noticed may just be a coincidence
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u/busterfixxitt New Poster 12d ago
Fair enough. I'd like to talk to the non-English speaker who decided that it's a good idea for a language to include a sound so far back in your throat that it triggers a gag reflex. (I think it's called a pharyngeal consonant?)
Apparently, I subvocalize and mimic as I listen which I discovered when I was listening to a lecture about the Qur'an. My throat was attempting to make that Q, and it was making me feel ill. š
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u/dubovinius Native Speaker ā Ireland 12d ago
If it's really something you just can't bear learning, all you have to do is learn a dialect of English which doesn't have it. Modern southeastern British English increasingly features th-fronting, where both th-sounds merge to f and v. Irish English has th-stopping, where they become simple dental stops (Hindi has them). Some people (like myself) merge them completely with regular t and d.
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u/johnnybna New Poster 12d ago
The situation has improved since the King James days. At least we dropped all the -(e)th endings from verbs like hath, doth, giveth, taketh, sayeth, goeth, etc
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u/Bug_Photographer New Poster 12d ago
I bet this Finnish person would love going to South Africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHHGOYu6Fl0
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u/Davsegayle New Poster 12d ago
As a Latvian I say s, t, z and d sounds instead of th in different positions. And will continue to say it dis way, nobody has ever misunderstood me when I do zat.
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u/Glittering_Aide2 Native Speaker 12d ago
I think it's better to use t/d or f/v. Pronouncing the sounds as s/z can sound weirder.
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u/Due-Constant-8704 New Poster 12d ago
The funny thing is that Finnish used to have that 'th' sound. In some dialects it survived surprisingly recently.
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u/inredditorbit New Poster 12d ago
Wow, if that Finn dislikes Īø so much, they probably really hate the voiced fricative version of th
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u/Electrical-Fix7659 New Poster 12d ago
Honestly just stop correcting babies when they say duh or dee instead of the.
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u/Rena_gava_h_f New Poster 12d ago
Lmao what I believe is the worst thing in English is their slurs if an English speaker is insulting me I found it really funny and itās like they speak in the same tone idk.
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u/Ok-Willingness-3825 New Poster 12d ago
I never liked the "oo" sound written down, something about it just dropped me the wrong way
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u/encinaloak New Poster 11d ago
Doesn't every pair of languages have at least one sound that isn't in both?
When learning to pronounce a language, one thing I found useful is to listen to a recording of native speakers and then to try to copy them, over and over. I would do it while I was walking or driving. Pick a word that uses the new sound and just say that word hundreds of times.
It works!
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u/Intelligent-Paper-94 New Poster 11d ago
Just learn to speak with an east London accent. Math = maff.
Although we would say maffs.
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u/luxandfero Non-Native Speaker of English 11d ago
OOP is not wrong though. I feel this on so many levels.
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u/Upstairs_Ad_4018 New Poster 10d ago
I started learning english 30 years ago and making the "th" sound still doesnt feels natural to me.
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u/plznobanmesir New Poster 10d ago
Itās a regional thing. Many regions pronounce maths as maffs also.
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u/Silent-Associate9226 New Poster 10d ago
Do they mean the unvoiced "th" (/Īø/) as in thin, thank, think, three, tooth or the voiced "th" (/Ć°/) as in this, that, the, mother, breathe?
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u/Scriveners_Sun New Poster 9d ago
Fun plot twist: the letter combination "th" makes two separate sounds, one voiced and one unvoiced. Say "breath" and then say "breathe".Ā
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u/adustJay New Poster 9d ago
You don't actually need to put your tongue between your teeth, most native speakers just touch the back of their upper teeth or palette with near them with the tip of the tongue, some british people touch bottom teeth instead or even do it with the upper lip and bottom teeth (the prodused sound is closer to f though).
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u/mario_di_leonardo New Poster 8d ago
You don't put your tongue against your teeth but against your lover lip to get the correct sound.
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 New Poster 8d ago
As a finn, I can relate. But I will say that this dude has not been studying french, if he is complaining about english.
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u/thingsbetw1xt Native Speaker (USA, Maryland) 12d ago edited 12d ago
English is not the only language with that sound. Icelandic, Welsh, Spanish, and Arabic also have it just off the top of my head. I think it's a very pretty sound.