How to pronounce the Voiced TH sound /ð/
/ð/ is a voiced consonant made at tongue between the teeth (dental). Set the tongue tip lightly against your top front teeth, as for the voiceless TH. Switch your voice on — you should feel a buzz in the tongue tip, not just in the throat.
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How to make it
- 1Set the tongue tip lightly against your top front teeth, as for the voiceless TH.
- 2Switch your voice on — you should feel a buzz in the tongue tip, not just in the throat.
- 3Let the air keep moving; it is a soft, continuous buzz, never a tap.
- 4Slide into the vowel without stopping the sound.
- Lips
- Relaxed, slightly apart.
- Tongue
- Tip touching the back or edge of the top front teeth.
- Jaw
- Slightly open.
Feel it
Put a hand flat on your throat and say the sound. It should buzz under your fingers from the very start — if the buzz only arrives with the vowel, you are making the voiceless version.Where the sound appears
Keeping it through a whole line
They gathered with their mother in the other room.
Breathe smoothly, then tell them that this is the weather we wanted.
Minimal pairs to drill
Each of these is two words separated by exactly one sound. If a listener hears the wrong one, the problem is the contrast, not the effort.
If your first language is…
Nothing here is about ability. Every one of these is a sound system doing exactly what it was built to do, applied to a language that asks for something else.
- HindiUrdu
Hindi and Urdu use a voiced dental stop for this sound, so 'they' becomes 'day' with the air stopped instead of buzzing.
- Bengali
Bengali replaces it with a dental d, which turns 'this' into 'dis'.
- Gujarati
Gujarati substitutes a voiced dental stop, so 'that' arrives as 'dat'.
- Mandarin
Mandarin has no voiced th, so /d/ or /z/ takes over and 'the' becomes 'duh' or 'zuh'.
- Cantonese
Cantonese typically uses /d/, so 'they' and 'day' become the same word.
- Japanese
Japanese substitutes /z/ or /d/, so 'mother' can come out as 'mazaa'.
- Korean
Korean uses /d/, so the tongue stays on the ridge and the buzz never reaches the teeth.
- Vietnamese
Vietnamese replaces it with /d/ or drops it in unstressed words like 'the'.
- Thai
Thai uses /d/, so 'this' and 'dis' sound the same until the tongue touches the teeth.
- Spanish
Spanish already makes this sound between vowels in 'nada', so it is available — the work is using it at the start of 'this' and 'they'.
- French
French speakers usually reach for /z/, so 'breathe' can end like 'breeze'.
- German
German also substitutes /z/ or /d/, so 'weather' can sound like 'wezzer'.
- Russian
Russian has neither th sound, so /z/ or /d/ stands in and the tongue never leaves the ridge.
- Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic and Gulf varieties have this sound, so it is available; Egyptian and Levantine varieties use /d/ or /z/.
Straight answers
Is /ð/ voiced or voiceless?
It is voiced. Put a hand on your throat and say it: you should feel a buzz the whole time. Every English vowel is voiced too, so the buzz never stops between this sound and the vowel next to it.
What words start with the Voiced TH sound?
Common ones include this, that, they. In the middle of a word you get mother, other, weather, and at the end breathe, smooth, with. Every one of those links to its own pronunciation page here.
How is /ð/ spelled in English?
It is written "th", "the". English spelling and English sound came apart centuries ago, so the same sound turns up under several spellings and the same spelling carries several sounds — which is why the sound, not the letter, is the thing to learn.
Why do Hindi & Urdu speakers find /ð/ hard?
Hindi and Urdu use a voiced dental stop for this sound, so 'they' becomes 'day' with the air stopped instead of buzzing.
Record the Voiced TH sound and see if it landed
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