How Do You Say Th?
Many non-native speakers may ask “How do you say Th?” This is a sound that is not in every language and can often be substituted as a /t/ or /d/ sound. To make things more complicated, it is written in two letters.
One of the goals of accent modification is to improve naturalness, which refers to the degree that listeners are able to focus on what is being said (McKinney, 2019). This sound when substituted with variations, such as ‘ting’ for ‘thing’ or ‘dumb’ for ‘thumb’ doesn’t impact intelligibility, but it does impact naturalness. Listeners will hear these substitutions and while their brains can still fill in the cracks and understand the message, they may get distracted by them.
How Do You Say Th?
In written English, when you see ‘th’ together, it is almost always produced as one sound. There are actually two ways to say Th. One is voiced, and one is voiceless, the tongue placement is the same.
This is the only sound in which the tongue comes out in between the top and bottom teeth. So, to produce this sound, stick the tip of your tongue between your top and bottom teeth, and blow air forward.
Voiced vs. Voiceless Th
Voiced and voiceless sounds are just like it sounds- a voiced sound means that the vocal cords are vibrating. In other words, the voice is turned on. Voiceless sounds refer to sounds in which the vocal cords are not vibrating. For these sounds, the voice is turned off.
To produce the voiceless th, stick the tip of your tongue between your top and bottom teeth, and blow air forward. Practice in words:
Initial position- thing, Thursday, thousand
Medial position- pathway, mouthwash, athlete
Final position- with, teeth, moth
To produce the voiced th, stick the tip of your tongue between your top and bottom teeth, and turn your voice on. Practice in words:
Initial position- the, this, that
Medial position- feather, either, weather
Final position- breathe, teethe, loathe
Th Blends
To add one more layer, there is something called a Th blend. This is when a consonant comes before or after the Th as in three, throw, earth, worth. For words /th/ blends, it’s best to address this sound individually in the initial, medial, and final positions of words before practicing in blends.
What sounds are difficult for you? Let us know in the comments below