Vol. 14, Issue 1, October 2013


Clearly Speaking

Joyce Mandell

The Troublesome “th”

Before I begin any pronunciation class, I always give my students a questionnaire to find out a bit about them, their past experience with speaking English, and if they have ever had any pronunciation help, be it formal classes or self-study. One of the questions asks them to identify any particular sounds that are difficult for them to pronounce in English. Invariably, regardless of their native language, the “th” sound of American English is always listed as a troublesome phoneme for most learners. It’s easy to understand why, and in my experience there are two major reasons for the difficulty.

First of all, the “th” phoneme does not exist in most of the world languages. Only three languages have this particular sound – Greek, Castilian Spanish, and English. And only for English is this phoneme so prevalent in almost any utterance. Both voiced and unvoiced “th” can appear in initial position (this and that,think and thanks); medial position (mother and together, mathematics and author); and final position (smooth and breathe, moth and both).

The second problem is the articulation of the phoneme itself. Whether you are pronouncing a word with the voiced or voiceless consonant, you must put your tongue between the teeth, showing the tip of the tongue, and blow air over the blade of the tongue. Many students feel that sticking one’s tongue out in such a visible way denotes rude or improper behavior, and since this sound feels so foreign to them, they tend to substitute other more familiar sounds. Thus, the unvoiced “th” will often have substitutions of /s/ or /t/, and the voiced “th” will usually be substituted by /z/ or most frequently, /d/.

I begin with just the placement of the tongue between the teeth, showing students that they don’t have to have their tongue protrude too far out, and not for too long a time. I give them the image of a tight and quick movement – sort of like the way a snake quickly sticks its tongue out in a very fast and darting fashion. The most important thing to remember is to have students blow the air over the tongue when it is in the correct position, for both the unvoiced and voiced sound. Learners need to feel the hissing sensation for words like “think” and “math” and be able to sustain the sound for a bit. One of the exercises is to produce the voiceless sound 4 -6 times and then say the word, like this: “TH TH TH TH TH TH......THANKS. TH TH TH TH TH TH .....THINK”. I do the same exercise with words like MATH and WORTH, in final position. The point is that the learners get mouth practice in making the sound, and there is a definite rhythmic pattern to the exercise.

The voiced “th” is a bit more problematic, as so many common words with this sound are in reduced forms in sentences (the, them, that, those, this, etc.) They shouldn’t get a lot of attention or power, so I like to practice very common combinations of these function words together, almost as a unit. Once the students have mastered the production of the sound of “the” and “that” in isolation, I put them together in short sentence prompts. For example, “that the” is repeated as if it were one word in a sentence like the following: “I KNOW that the CLASS is HARD,” reminding them that the combination of the two words is said quickly and softly, without too much emphasis. Since the voiced “th” appears often in unstressed syllables, students need to practice them as soft and weak sounds in contrast to the content words in the sentences.

Just practicing this little “chunk” of a phrase, embedding it into many different sentences (I THINK that the MOON is BEAUTIFUL, etc.) helps to strengthen the motor memory of the phoneme. Of course, substituting /d/ for the voiced “th” rarely affects intelligibility and doesn’t cause too much misunderstanding; nevertheless, advanced students really want to gain some competence in producing the voiced “th” because they realize that people will perceive them as being stronger in English with a mastery of this sound.

Overcoming the reluctance to the physical articulation of the “th” is the first step, and diligent practice of the sound in various combinations is the second step. Finally, you want to give students practice in less controlled, real-world situations and role plays that reinforce the mastery of this all-important sound in American English.

Joyce Mandell has been teaching speech and pronunciation skills to non-native speakers for over 15 years, working in a variety of educational and business settings. She is an adjunct at Baruch College in both Continuing and Professional Studies and the Communication Studies Department, where she teaches public speaking. She also works individually with business professionals.

To contact Joyce about this column, please email editor@dialogue.nystesol.org

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