English Has TWO TH Sounds (Here's When to Use Them)

[00:00:00]Have you ever noticed that the th sound in this is different from the th sound in think?

[00:00:08]This has what we call the voiced th sound v.

[00:00:14]Think has what we call the unvoiced th sound.

[00:00:20]But if th can make two different sounds, how do you know when to make each of them? Although there isn't one rule that works 100% of the time, there are four patterns that work most of the time.

[00:00:36]First, we have what we call function words, which we can also just think of as grammar words. For example, the then, then, though, these, they there. And as you probably noticed, these ones almost always have the voiced th sound, v.

[00:01:03]Next, we have what we call content words. These are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. And these words almost always have the unvoiced th sound.

[00:01:18]Some examples are think, thin, three, thousand, thumb, and theater. Then we have words where th is in the middle of a word between two vowel sounds. And in these words, it usually makes the voiced th sound. For example, mother, father, brother, weather, leather. But remember, this is just a pattern, not a rule, because there are also some words where the th in the middle of a word makes the unvoiced th sound. For example, author, athlete, and method. And the last general pattern is th at the end of a word. But there are actually two here.

[00:02:12]Normally th at the end of a word is unvoiced. For example, north, south, both, bath, truth. But when there's an e after it, then it is almost always voiced.

[00:02:30]for example, soothe, breathe, or bathe. And one thing you might have noticed from those final examples is that when the voiced th is at the end of a word, it doesn't always sound supervoiced. So, you don't need to force yourself to say soothe.

[00:02:52]It's okay if it's just soothe. Soothe.

[00:02:55]It doesn't need to be supervoiced. If you found this video useful and want more videos to help you improve your English communication, please don't forget to subscribe to this channel.