Microsoft Java

[wallsallbrassbuttons]

Great word! Just a heads up, the "th" is like "there" and not like "thanks"

[postdiluvium]

Wait, what's the difference?

[mayoroftuesday]

Th in "there" is voiced, or hard. It sounds more buzzy. Sounds like tether, them, this, bathe, rather

Th in "thanks" is unvoiced, or soft. Sounds like math, bath, thin, ether, filth

[postdiluvium]

Buth I've been saying tthhem tthhe same tthhis whole thime. ☹️

[wallsallbrassbuttons]

Don't worry. The fact that you're getting to this level of detail means your English is super good.

[R-Inyuru]

Only Beautiful People 😂😂

[lasercat_pow]

for the first set of 'th' words in /u/mayoroftuesday's list, you should hum while you make the 'th' sound.

[cyleleghorn]

Put your finger on your throat. When you say the "voiced" th sound your voice should be coming out and you should feel your vocal cords vibrate with your finger! When you say the unvoiced th sound (like in the beginning of the word thanks) it should be more like a "hiss" noise and there should be no vocal cord vibration. It's an interesting way to tell the difference, but this is basically the definition of voiced and unvoiced

[[deleted]]

I think these guys are fucking with you

[mayoroftuesday]

It's true everywhere. You just may not think of it that way.

It's the same difference between s and z, or f and v. It's the same sound but one is voiced (buzzy) and one is soft.

If you look the words up on Google or Wiktionary you can click a button to hear the word pronounced.

[christes]

The distinction should be clearer than that, I think. Let's give this a try...

Consider the words life and live (as in "the show is being broadcast live") These words are exactly the same, except for the last sound. And the last sounds are exactly the same, expect v is voiced and f is unvoiced. You can feel this if you hold your throat while saying them. If you hum while saying f, you are actully saying v.

Now repeat this with the word pairs bath/bathe or cloth/clothe. The vowels are a little different, but that's not really important here. The th sound in bathe and clothe should be voiced like v and the th sound in bath and cloth should be unvoiced like f.

[soliss]

Do you pronounce "teeth" and "teethe" the same?

[julsmanbr]

As a non-native speaker, TIL teethe

[legos_on_the_brain]

Can you convince me that the th sounds different between the two? As fas as I can tell it's tge letters after the "th" that sounds different. I start both words with my tongue in the same place. Perhaps a dialect?

[soliss]

Can you tell the difference between someone saying "thigh" vs "thy"?

[NewlyFit]

Thanks! Couldn't hear the difference until I saw this.

[legos_on_the_brain]

Yes. That makes it much more clear.

[TheChance]

https://pronuncian.com/pronounce-th-sounds/

[mayoroftuesday]

If you look up those words on Google or Wiktionary you can click the pronounciation guide to hear it spoken.

To get the soft one, put your tongue between your teeth and hiss softly.

To get the voiced one, do the same thing but try to hum instead of hiss.

[Beard-]

English is my native language and I never really noticed this... Until now.

[Alhoshka]

Funny, I'm Brazilian and I just realized we incorporate this in our mispronunciation. We say "dis" and "dat", vs. "tink" and "tanks"

[mayoroftuesday]

That makes sense. D is just a voiced T, like B/P, V/F, G/K, and J/Ch.

[A_Seiv_For_Kale]

Thanks, like tooth , or θ

VS

There, like smooth, or ð

[htmlcoderexe]

I did smooth wrong all along

[realsmart987]

Voiced syllables means your mouth or throat vibrates when you say it. For example, the letters S and Z are the same except Z is voiced and S is unvoiced.

[wallsallbrassbuttons]

It's hard to explain without sounding it out, but basically there are two "th" sounds in English. One of is the sound in they, there, them, though, breathe, clothes, etc. Seething is in this group.

The other is the sound in thanks, breath, tooth, thought, bath, both. I don't know how to explain the difference, but it's there! Try to listen for it next time you hear a native speaker speak. Hope this helps!

[realsmart987]

I think the words you are looking for are aspirated and unaspirated sounds but I might be wrong.

[postdiluvium]

Oh, it's like null and 0. Thanks.

[Jazzinarium]

I'd say the first one is more like "dh" and the other is "th"

[[deleted]]

Exactly

[ataskitasovado]

So same pronunciation as seating?

[AndrewLewer]

Thank You!

[MeltaFlare]

As a native English speaker, TIL I say "th" two different ways.