Troubleshooting TH: It’s S on the teeth

“TH” is one of the more difficult English consonants to master. It’s relatively rare in the world’s languages and the spelling is quite confusing. The “th” sound has nothing to do with either a “t” or “h”. To help understand the concept of the “th” sound, let’s review a bit of history. (You can skip down for pronunciation strategies)

First, let’s stop calling it the “th” sound for a moment. We’ll call it a dental sound for now (it is pronounced on the teeth, after all). English wasn’t always written with the letters I’m using to write this blog article. These letters are more precisely called Latin letters. That’s because Roman monks introduced Latin letters to English in the 9th century when the Roman Empire extended its reach to the British Isles.

When the Romans encountered English for the first time, they did not have a way to write the English dental sound in their script. Latin does not have a dental fricative (turbulent) sound like English. So they arbitrarily used “th” to write it, although the English dental sound does not contain either a /t/ or /h/ sound. Hence the modern confusion for English learners today.

Another language that has the same dental sounds as English is Icelandic. Icelandic does not write these sounds with a “t” or “h”. They write them with this symbol: ð. I wish English used this symbol because things would be less confusing (and I think it’s a cooler symbol).

The International Phonetic Alphabet also uses this symbol to write the dental sound. They use /ð/ for the voiced (larynx buzzing, as in “this”) dental sound and /θ/ for the voiceless (larynx quiet, as in “thing”) dental sound.

What does this mean for you? If you’re struggling to master the English “th”, you must first disassociate your understanding of the symbols “t” and “h” from the actual pronunciation of this dental sound. Take a moment to do that. Say to yourself: It’s not /t/, it’s not /h/, it’s a completely different sound.

Pronunciation Strategies

Strategy 1

The English “th” sound (no relationship to /t/ or /h/) is made by placing the tip of the tongue up against the sharp edge of your top teeth. Let the air gradually escape, creating a turbulent point of air pressure where your teeth and tongue meet. What’s key here is that you do not stop the air.

If this is difficult to conceptualize, try this:

English “th” is essentially /s/ on the teeth. That’s right. Say the /s/ sound. Now push your tongue forward up against you teeth and say /s/ again. It’s going to feel weird but give it a try. Ask your English-speaking friend (or English teacher, speech coach, etc.) if it sounds right.

The “th” above is the voiceless (quiet larynx) sound. For the voiced “th” sound (larynx buzzing), it’s like /z/ on the teeth. The exact same thing but with your larynx buzzing.

Here’s an exercise to try it out:

Chant this several times, remembering to transfer the same type of movement and airflow from /s/ or /z/ to the “th” sound.

Voiceless:

sing, sing, sing; thing, thing, thing.

Voiced:

zay, zay, zay; they, they, they

Try that every morning until the “th” sound comes naturally.

Strategy 2

If Strategy 1 worked for you, stop there! Do not read on. Strategy 2 will only confuse you. Only read Strategy 2 if Strategy 1 did work or if you are interested in the phonetic variability of the English “th”.

For some learners, no matter how hard they try, the “/s/ on the teeth” idea just doesn’t work. That’s okay. Let’s try something different.

Many people aren’t aware that there are two acceptable ways to pronounce the “th” sound in English (and I’m not talking about the voiced/voiceless contrast, that’s different and depends on the word). You can pronounce “th” as /s/ on the teeth (dental fricative), OR you can pronounce it as a fast stop on the teeth (unaspirated dental stop). If that doesn’t make sense yet, don’t panic. I’ll break it down of your below. Just know that both ways sound perfectly acceptable to English listeners and most couldn’t tell you about the difference. Let’s focus on the second one for Strategy 2.

The English /t/ sound is made with a big puff of air. Linguists call this aspiration. You can hold your hand or a piece of paper up to your mouth and say “talk”. You should feel it or see the paper move dramatically when you say the /t/. Try this with the word “dock”. You should not feel/see movement of the paper. Apart from voiceless/voiced, this puff of air is the primary difference between /t/ and /d/ in English.

Now, say /d/ on the teeth. Push your tongue forward and up against the sharp edge of your top teeth and say “they”. Saying /d/ on the teeth sounds perfectly acceptable to English listeners. It sounds like a “th” (/ð/) to us.

Try this exercise:

Chant this several times, remembering to transfer the same type of movement from /d/ to the “th” sound.

day, day, day; they, they, they

Ask an English-speaking friend or teacher to listen and tell you if it sounds right.

Now on to the (slightly) more difficult voiceless '“th” sound.

We’re going to say /t/ on the teeth… but with no puff of air (aspiration). If you add a puff of air, it will sound like a /t/ to English-speaking listeners. It’s weird, but that’s how our brains classify that type of sound. I’ve been told that this type of “th” sounds a little like the Sanskrit “t” but with the tongue pushed more forward between the teeth. I DON’T want you to do a chant like “ting, ting, thing, thing” because you may be too tempted to say the “th” with a puff of air.

Give this a try instead. Copy the way the “d” is pronounced but when you transition to “th”, make your larynx quiet (voiceless):

ding, ding, ding; thing, thing, thing

If you try both of these strategies and are still struggling or confused, it will be necessary to work one-on-one with a speech coach/teacher to master this sound. Don’t feel discouraged. Sometimes it’s just easier to learn something doing it with another person. You can sign up to work with me one-on-one using this link.

Written by Sarah Sherer, PhD 5/23/2023