AE 1336

Aussie Accent Training: The 2 TH Sounds /θ/ & /ð/ in Australian Pronunciation

Learn Australian English in this episode of the Aussie English Podcast.

These episodes aim to teach you common English expressions as well as give you a fair dinkum true-blue dose of Aussie culture, history, and news and current affairs.

In today's episode...

Right, listen up, you legends! Fancy sounding more like a true-blue Aussie? Well, in this ripper of an episode of Aussie English, Pete’s gonna help ya nail those tricky “th” sounds. Yep, we’re talking about both the whispery one and the buzzy one – the voiceless and the voiced “th”.

Pete breaks it all down, showing ya exactly where to put your tongue (think “teeth tongue sandwich”!), and he’s got heaps of common words and sentences for ya to practice with. Plus, he even spills the beans on his Aussie Pronunciation Course if you’re keen to go the whole hog.

So, if you’ve ever wondered how to say “think” or “that” with a proper Aussie twang, this is the episode for you! Don’t be a galah, tune in and let’s get your Aussie English pronunciation sorted!

Don’t forget to download the FREE Worksheet for this episode!

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Transcript of AE 1336 - Aussie Accent Training: The 2 TH Sounds /θ/ & /ð/ in Australian Pronunciation

G'day you mob, and welcome to Aussie English. I am your host, Pete. And my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flipping hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go!

G'day, you mob! Pete here. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I've got a little pronunciation episode for you here where we're going to work on the two different th sounds in Australian English. Well, in any form of English, but obviously I'm Australian, I speak Australian English, so the pronunciation is going to be, you guessed it, Australian English pronunciation.

So, there is the Voiceless TH /θ/ and there is the Voiced TH /ð/. The only difference being whether or not you are making a /ooh/ sound with your throat when you do these two sounds.

So, we're going to go through a bunch of different words for each of these the Voiceless TH /θ/ and the Voiced TH /ð/. And then at the end we'll go through some short sentences with the unvoiced TH /θ/ and with the voiced TH /ð/ so that you can practise your pronunciation, okay.

Today's lesson also comes with a free worksheet so that you can see the spelling of all the words we're going through.

You'll be able to see the International Phonetic Alphabet for each of these words. So you can understand the sounds in the words. And you will also see all of the phrases as well. So if you want to grab that free worksheet, just check the description, click the link, enter your email and you can download it. Anyway, let's get into today's episode.

All right. We'll start with the Voiceless TH /θ/. So to start, let's say this sound a few times together. Okay I'll say it. And then I want you to say it out loud after me.

/θ/

So it sounds like kind of like an F sound, except the tongue is between the teeth. So, I call it the "teeth tongue sandwich". If you imagine that the tongue is like a burger between two bits of bread. Or say, you know, two buns. The teeth are the buns. So the tongue has to be touching both the top teeth and the bottom teeth. It's kind of lightly pinched between your teeth, and you're blowing air over the top of your tongue.

/θ/

Again, to see exactly what I'm doing. If you get the Australian pronunciation course, you will see videos close up of my mouth showing you how to position your tongue and your teeth and your lips and everything like that for this sound and many others.

All right, now that we've done that, let's go through a bunch of words, common words, that have the Voiceless TH sound in them. So listen and repeat after me.

Thin.

Thick.

Thank.

Think.

Path.

Math.

Thumb.

Reef.

Tooth.

Bath.

Both.

Good work, good work.

So I'm trying to linger a little bit on that TH sound just so that you can practice it by holding it for slightly more than normal, right. So instead of saying 'thin' really quickly. I'm trying to get you to say /thin/ so that you can get used to the position your tongue needs to be in to make that sound.

So let's do these words one more time. I'll say each word slowly, and then I'll say it more naturally. Okay. So we'll do each one twice. So, listen and repeat after me.

Thin. Thin.

Thick. Thick.

Thank. Thank.

Think. Think.

Path. Path.

Math. Math.

Thumb. Thumb.

Tooth. Tooth.

Bath. Bath.

Both. Both.

Good job, good job. So how was that? Hopefully it went okay.

Hopefully you get used to how to position your tongue between the teeth. And that feeling of what it's like when you hold it there for a second, and then you just have to practice speeding it up, speeding it up.

And I'll tell you what I tell my students all the time who get private lessons with me. If it feels weird, if it feels strange, if you feel embarrassed, you're probably doing it right, okay. You're probably doing it correctly. It will feel strange.

This is a very unique sound. Very few languages use the TH sound. English is one of them, obviously, so it does feel strange when you're first getting used to it. Okay, so don't, don't feel bad.

And I should say, shameless plug, if you want private lessons. If you're interested in working on your pronunciation as well as other aspects of your English, shoot me a message. Send me your email address. Well, yeah, I guess you would. You'd send me your email address if you're sending me an email, duh.

But if you're sending me a message on Instagram, shoot me your email as well. Tell me you're interested in private lessons and I can send you the information related to those, as I've got quite a few spots still available.

Okay, so now let's go through some short sentences with these words in them with the Voiceless TH, okay. I will say each of them twice. The first time I'll try and say it more slowly, and then I'll speed it up a little bit to sound more natural. Okay, so listen and repeat after me.

She wore a thin jacket in the wind.

The book was thick and heavy.

Thank you for the help.

I think it's going to rain.

We walked along the garden path.

He's good at math and science.

She hurt her thumb while playing.

He lost a tooth last night.

I took a warm bath before bed.

Both of them were late.

Good work. Now I should add, there are some TH words in those sentences that have the Voiced TH as well. So, you'll see words like "the" and "them". Okay, so don't be surprised if there are some that are voiced in those sentences. They're not meant to only have the voiceless words, but they do include the voiceless words that we practised earlier on.

Today's episode is brought to you by my course, the Australian Pronunciation Course. In this course you will learn how to speak with Australian pronunciation. It is designed to help you sound more Australian, to nail all of our vowels, to nail all of our consonant sounds, to get used to sound changes, linking sounds, everything like that.

So inside the course there are three sections. The first section teaches you how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet. To practice your pronunciation, the IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet is the alphabet you see in dictionaries where it's weird little symbols below the word that show you where the stress is. It shows you which sounds are inside the word and how to pronounce it.

It's a very powerful tool if you want to practice pronunciation on your own, so that you can then understand those symbols and know what sounds are within a word when you look it up.

The second section goes through the different vowel sounds and the different consonant sounds in Australian English. There are 40 or so of these sounds that you need to be able to master, to sound much more Australian when speaking.

These include video tutorials, how to pronounce the sound itself, then exercise videos and audio lessons to practice those sounds just like today's podcast episode. Okay, so it helps you work on specific sounds.

And then the third section goes through the more advanced aspects of Australian pronunciation sound changes. Consonant clusters. How to say the Australian R, when to use linking sounds like /w/ /ɹ/ and /j/. There's 25 advanced lessons in there, and I'm adding more to the course as we speak as well.

So if you're interested in this, use the link www.AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100 and you will save $100 when you sign up to this course. The link will be in the description so you can just go click it there. If you can't remember the link, I'd have trouble remembering it if it were me, but once again, the link is AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100 okay, as in Australian Pronunciation Course 100, $100 off.

Now let's get into the Voiced section of this episode. So the only difference here between the Voiced and Unvoiced TH is, is that the voiceless one or the unvoiced one is like whispering, you're not vibrating your voice box.

So you're saying /θ/ and the voiced one is where you are vibrating your voice box. So you get like a, uh, sound, right? /ð/ You're making noise with your throat, with your voice box.

So let's practice that sound a few times.

/ð/

It almost sounds like a phone vibrating in your pocket, right? Let's do it three more times.

/ð/.

/ð/

Hello. It's Pete. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Oh, I'm so funny. Uh, anyway, anyway, I gotta make this fun for myself, okay, guys?

So just remember that the position of your tongue and your teeth and everything, it's exactly the same. So, the tongue is wedged between the teeth. The teeth kind of pinch down on it from the bottom and from the top. And the air is going over the top of the tongue. And you should feel it vibrating. Like, it vibrates like it sounds. But you can feel it in the top teeth and the tongue.

Okay, so we've done that. Now let's go through these words with the Voiced TH, okay. So listen and repeat after me.

This.

That.

Then.

Them.

They.

The.

Though.

Those.

There.

Thus.

Good job, good job. Now let's do it one more time.

And I'll say each of them twice. The first time I will try and linger on the voice. Th sounds. I'll try and hold it for a second. And the second time I'll say it more quickly. Okay, so try and do the same thing. Listen and repeat after me.

This. This.

That. That.

Then. Then.

Them. Them.

They. They.

The. The.

Though. Though.

Those. Those.

There. There.

Thus. Thus.

Awesome. Awesome. Okay, so now the last thing to do is some sentences with these Voiced TH words in them.

Remember, I will try and do it slowly at first, and then I will say it more naturally the second time. So we'll do each of these sentences two times okay. So listen and repeat after me.

This is my favourite book.

I like that one better.

We'll eat and then go out.

Give it to them, please.

They are waiting outside.

The dog is in the yard.

I'm tired, though I'll come.

I don't need those shoes.

There is a bird in the tree.

He forgot his keys, thus he was late.

Good job. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode.

I would love your feedback. So when you're shooting me a message and asking about private lessons, let me know what you think of this this format. Is it helpful? Is this something you enjoy?

And also, tell me if you have any other sounds you would like to work on. Are there other sounds in English you find really difficult in Australian English specifically?

Don't forget guys, that today's lesson comes with a free PDF worksheet. So if you want to grab this so you can see all the words and phrases and the International Phonetic Alphabet on the worksheet. As you're going through this episode, just check the description, the links in there, chuck your email in and you'll be able to download it.

And besides that, remember if you want to speak more confidently and sound like an Australian, get your own Aussie accent. Go and check out my Australian pronunciation course. Just go to AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100 and you will save $100 when you sign up to the course.

There's a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you decide in the first month that the course is not for you. No wukkas mate, no worries. I will give you 100% of your money back. You'll get a refund, but go check it out. AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100. The link will be in the description and besides that, I hope you have an amazing week and I'll chat to you next time. Tooroo!