How To Pronounce TH In English Correctly (English Pronunciation Course)

Do you sometimes feel like English pronunciation is really hard?

Do you sometimes feel like no matter how hard you try, you just can’t pronounce some words in English correctly?

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. You can pronounce every sound of English like a native speaker if you learn to make the sounds of English.

To learn to make the sounds of English, you need to practise and you need to know what to do with your mouth, lips, tongue, throat and teeth.

In this video, you are going to see one of the 55 lessons from our 4 hour English pronunciation course that we just released last month. The link to the pronunciation course is in the description below.

In our pronunciation course, you will learn how to pronounce every sound of English like a native speaker. You will learn how to reduce your accent when speaking English and you will learn how to be easily understood by native speakers.

The course also includes common mistakes, frequently asked questions and practice words which sound similar.

The lesson you will see today is about how to correctly pronounce the two TH sounds in English.

You will see that these sounds are easy to pronounce if you practise and if you know what to do with your mouth when making these sounds.

After that lesson, you will see some other parts of the pronunciation course. And make sure you watch until the end of the video because there will be a special discount code for you to get a special price on our English pronunciation course.

Okay, are you ready to start improving your pronunciation? Here is the first lesson about how to pronounce the two TH sounds correctly.

How To Pronounce /θ/ and /ð/

In this video, you are going to learn how to pronounce these two sounds. /θ/ as ‘thin’. /ð/ as in ‘the’.

This sound is pronounced /θ/ /θ/

This is an unvoiced sound so when you pronounce this sound, your throat does not vibrate. /θ/ /θ/

To make this sound, put your tongue through your teeth. Like this.

Your tongue should be pressing up just slightly to your top front teeth.

When you have your tongue in this position, then you push the air out. /θ/ /θ/

If you’re not sure how far out to put your tongue, you can put your finger up against your mouth. Your tongue shouldn’t go past this point. /θ/ /θ/

It’s a continuous sound which means you can hold it for a long time.

It’s very important that when you’re making this sound, your tongue is through your teeth. If your tongue isn’t through your teeth, you may end up making a completely different sound. /θ/ /θ/

This sound may feel a bit weird for you if you don’t have a sound like this in your language. Keep trying. Keep doing this again and again and again and making this sound will start to feel natural for you.

This sound is pronounced /ð/ /ð/ This is a voiced sound so when you make this sound, your throat must vibrate. /ð/ /ð/

When making this sound, the mouth and tongue position is exactly the same as the previous sound. That means you should have your tongue through your teeth just slightly. Like this.

When you have your tongue in position, push the air out and voice the sound. /ð/ /ð/

This is also a continuous sound which means you can hold it for a long time. /ð/ /ð/

If you still feel like making your throat vibrate is hard, try this. Take your hand and put it on your throat. Say /ɑ:/ /ɑ:/ You should feel that your throat is vibrating. This means your voice is on.

Now, say /ɑ:/ again and slowly change your mouth position until you’re saying /ð/ but when you’re doing this, don’t let your throat stop vibrating. Let me show you how to do it. /ɑ:/ /ð/

One more time. /ɑ:/ /ð/

You see here that when I’m doing this I’m not letting my throat stop vibrating. Remember, don’t stop after just one try. Keep trying and you will be able to make the sound.

So what is the difference between these two sounds? The main difference is that the first sound is unvoiced. /θ/ The second sound is voiced. /ð/

Now let’s look at some practice words for this sound. This sound is pronounced /θ/ /θ/

I will say each word twice and I want you to repeat after me. Thin. Thin. Bath. Bath. Think. Think. Method. Method. Earth. Earth.

You can see that the /θ/ sound is written in English normally by just using TH as in ‘thin’.

Now let’s look at some practice words for this sound. This sound is pronounced /ð/ /ð/ The. The. Them. Them. There. There. Smooth. Smooth. Mother. Mother.

Again, you can see here that the /ð/ sound is normally written in English by just using the letters TH as in ‘the’.

There are not really any minimal pairs for these two sounds so now let’s look at using these sounds in some sentences. Remember, repeat after me.

Number one. I think he has three methods. I think he has three methods.

Number two. They went into the tunnel. They went into the tunnel.

Number three. Earth is there on that chart. Earth is there on that chart.

Congratulations! Now you know the first 14 consonant sounds of the IPA. If you’re ready to learn more consonant sounds, I will see you in the next video.

What Is The International Phonetic Alphabet?

 In this course, you are going to be learning the International Phonetic Alphabet so you can learn how to make every single sound in English.

So before we get started we need to talk about what the International Phonetic Alphabet is.

International means involving two or more countries. Phonetic means something about sounds. Alphabet means the group of letters which we use for writing a language.

So what do you think the International Phonetic Alphabet is?

It’s an alphabet which shows us the actual pronunciation of English. It can be used to show us how to pronounce every single word in English.

The second thing you might see is that wow, there are 20 vowel sounds in English. I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking ‘Shane, I was taught that there’s only five vowels in English.’ Yes, that’s true. There are five vowels letters in English. But, there are 20 vowel sounds in English.

Exercises To Improve Your Pronunciation

In this video, we are going to do some exercises which will help you to learn to control your mouth when making English sounds.

Now, when I am doing these exercises, I want you to repeat after me.

The first drill we are going to do is changing from an /i:/ sound to an /u:/ sound. Remember, how we talked about that /i:/ comes from the front of the mouth and /u:/ comes from the back of the mouth?

What I want you to do is start by saying /i:/ then move to saying /u:/ then move back to saying /i:/ and then move back to saying /u:/

When you’re doing this, don’t stop making a sound. Also, when you’re doing this you should feel the sound moving back and forth in your mouth. Let me show you what I mean. One more time.

You see here that my mouth starts quite wide. /i:/ And then it moves to a circle shape. /u:/ And when you’re doing this, again, you should feel the sound going back and forth in your mouth like you can see here in the chart. Let me show you one more time.

Stop Sounds In English

Did you know that some sounds may be pronounced differently when they are at the end of a word? In this video, we are going to talk about what stop sounds are and how to pronounce them when they are at the end of a word.

First, we need to talk about what stop sounds are. A stop sound is a sound that is made by first stopping air from leaving the mouth and then secondly releasing that air. Stop sounds can be voiced and they can be unvoiced.

How To Use What You Have Learned

Congratulations! You have learned to pronounce every sound of English like a native speaker. Now you might be thinking ‘Okay, I know how to pronounce the sounds and I know the symbols of the IPA but how does that help me?’

Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about in today’s lesson. When you’re learning a language you often see words that you don’t know how to pronounce.

Maybe you listen to the pronunciation online but it’s not clear. You’re still not 100% sure about how to pronounce that word.

Well, this is the first way that the IPA can help you. You can type in the word that you’re not sure how to pronounce into a dictionary like Cambridge and it will show you the IPA. You will know exactly how to pronounce the word without even hearing it.

Let’s pretend you see this word and you’re not sure about how to pronounce it. You can type this word into the Cambridge dictionary online and this is what you’ll see. You will see the word is pronounced …

Conclusion

Welcome back! So that was just one small part of our 4 hour English pronunciation course.

As you will see, this course will teach you how to make every sound of English like a native speaker and has pratice words, words which sound similar, practice sentences, close ups of my mouth, common mistakes, frequently asked questions, mp3 downloads and much much more.

So if you’re ready to start improving your English pronunciation and being easily understood by native English speakers, click on the link in the description below and enter this code to receive a discount on the course.

Be quick though because this code will expire in less than 7 days from when this YouTube video goes live.

Thanks for watching and we will see you in the next video!