Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Cheers! You know, I look at you and I think you have really nice... really nice tits! Your tits! Very clean. Very nice to look at. What? Where you go? You're an idiot! What? We had good dinner, good dancing, I said she had nice tits... You don't pronounce it correctly, man. "Teeth", never forget the "th" sound. "Teeth" Also, it's not teeths. One tooth, many teeth. The plural is teeth. Nah... whatever. For this lesson, you'll need a straw. So, the "th" sound. You know, on the thousands of languages on Earth, only a few actually use this sound. And even then, there are two versions of it. /θ/ and /ð/ How ridiculous is that? Thanks English! Ok, all through this video, try to repeat the "th" words with me, so you can practice. Ok. How do you do it? I'll show you. But that's not a lesson, you're just showing me your mouth! Teach me! Ok, fine, I'll teach a lesson on it! Jesus! So, first thing, don't put your tongue just behind your teeth, because you'll stop the air flow and get a "d" sound. That doesn't work. And don't get your tongue too far out because you'll get this sound: It looks ridiculous. So, what is the perfect position of the tongue, the teeth, the lips and everything? In my experience, this exercise is the best and the easiest to learn it. Let's try! Put your mouth open, rest your tongue on the bottom teeth, just behind the bottom lip. Blow out gently, bring your top teeth down slowly until naturally that sound comes out. Ok, now, try saying this sentence. Now, for some people, this is still difficult and probably, during that practice, you sounded like this: Why is so hard? It's because your tongue is too relaxed and it doesn't know what to do! What should I do? For this next exercise, you need a straw. Now, the same pressure I need to hold this straw between my tongue and my top teeth, that's how tense your tongue should be when making the "th" sound. So you know the position of it, but this is how strong it should be. Take your straw, hold it, between your tongue and your top teeth. You don't need much strength in your tongue, just a little bit. But that's how tense your tongue should be. Ok, now, try this sentence. Say it slowly. Another common thing is how far out should you put your tongue? Well, a good measure is to put your finger in front of your lips. Like this. Then, that should be the limit of where your tongue touches. Ok, you've just learnt the unvoiced TH sound. The unvoiced /θ/ sound. Represented by this symbol. Unvoiced? What the hell is unvoiced? So, touch your throat while you make this sound. Nothing, it's normal, right? This is called the unvoiced. Keeping your mouth and tongue and teeth in the same position, I want you to make a vibration in the throat. This is called the voiced TH sound, represented by this symbol. It's called voiced because you feel a vibration. /ð/ = voiced, /θ/, no vibration, unvoiced. Hey, are you writing in the comments "when do I use the voiced and the unvoiced TH sounds?"? That's a very good question! But, remember this is English, and it's stupid and it's ridiculous. We don't exactly have rules for it, only guides. So, here are some guides for you. After most consonant sounds like /m/ and /n/, the TH sound will be unvoiced. For example in words like strength, length, plinth, warmth. After a vowel sound and before a schwa sound, usually, it will be voiced. For example, brother, mother, father, either, feather, clothes. And at the start of a word, it's usually unvoiced. Thank you, Thursday... But then, we've got this, that, those... So, again, ther's no real definite rule when to use the voiced TH or the unvoiced TH, it's more a case of hear the word, think "is it unvoiced or voiced?", practice it, keep it in your memory for next time. Ok, final test. In English, we call these tongue twisters. So, thank you for watching, this was great! I'll see you in the next class! Bye!
A2 UK unvoiced tongue teeth sound voiced top teeth The perfect 15 1 Minnie posted on 2021/02/17 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary