Voiceless dental fricative (θ)

Voiceless dental fricative The unvoiced dental fricative is a consonant sound consisting of an unvoiced dental fricative. This sound is represented by the phoneme /θ/; it may also be referred to as an unvoiced th sound. It forms a voiced-unvoiced pair with the voiced dental fricative sound.

Common words

Initial pronunciation of /θ/:

• thanks - theater^AmE - theatre^BrE - theme - theory - therapy - thick - thin - thing - think - thirteen - thirst - thirty - thorough - thought - thousand - threat - three - threw - throat - through - throw - thumb - Thursday

Final pronunciation of /θ/:

• bath - beneath - birth - both - breath - death - depth - earth - faith - forth - growth - health - length - math^AmE - month - mouth - north - path - south - strength - teeth - tooth - truth - wealth - worth - youth

Middle pronunciation of /θ/:

• anything - everything - nothing - something
• athlete - author - Dorothy - Ethiopia /iːθiːˈoʊpiːə/ - ethnic - healthy - hypothesis - Martha - mathematics - maths^BrE - method - monthly - strengthen - wealthy

Plurals

Irregular plurals of words ending in /θ/, as /ðz/

• baths - mouths - paths - youths

Several plurals of words ending in /θ/ are pronounced as /ðz/ and also as /θs/

• oaths - truths - wreaths

/θ/ or /ð/

• booth - with

• /ð/,^BrE AmE /θ/^AmE within - without

Homophones

• threw - through

Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1

Preconceived ideas and other interferences from L1 interfere in many cases with how students perceive - and pronounce - sounds/words in English. The section aims to point some of the most typical difficulties teachers and students may encounter regarding .

The /θ/ sound was misinterpreted by young people, and some speakers tend to replace it with /s/ or /d/ or /f/. for example pronounce "think" as */dɪŋk/

Spanish

Many speakers don't distinguish clearly between /θ/ and /ð/ and when they see "th" tend to pronounce it [θ], a sound which corresponds to the letter "z" in Spanish. This happens also when speaking Spanish: Madrid’s inhabitants are notorious for pronouncing [ma'driθ].

Another difficulty is the tendency to pronounce the initial letter “c" as /θ/ in words like “city" and “centre.”

Latin America

The /θ/ sound doesn't exist, and speakers tend to replace it with /s/ or /t/. However, if another phoneme must be chosen it has been suggested to use /f/, for example pronounce "think" as */fɪŋk/ instead of */sɪŋk/.

Italian

The /θ/ sound doesn't exist, and speakers tend to replace it with /f/.