Speak and be understood! ‘TH’ & ‘D’ Sounds in English

Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's video, we're going to

do a little bit of pronunciation work. We're

going to look at the difference between the

two "th" sounds and the "d" sound, which many

people have a hard time distinguishing, especially

in terms of speaking. In terms of listening,

it should be pretty clear which sound you're

hearing, but in terms of expressing the sound,

some people have a bit of a hard time with

that. So, we're going to look at these in terms of where to put our tongues, what to

do, and then we're going to look at some examples.

So, we're going to start with this "th". So,

this word is "breathe", "breathe". So, this

is called the "voiced th". What does that mean? It means that you're putting... This

is your mouth, by the way. I'm not the best

artist, so try to keep up. This is your mouth.

These are your teeth coming up and coming down, and the red part is your tongue. So,

for this "th", for the voiced "th", you're going to put your tongue in front of your

upper teeth, and you're not... And then what

you're going to do, you're going to vibrate.

Now, technically, you're vibrating your vocal

cords, but you should feel your tongue shaking

a little bit. Think about your smartphone. If you have a smartphone and you put it on

vibrate, when it... When somebody calls you,

it shakes on the table and you can hear that

shaking sound. That's what your tongue is doing, too. It's vibrating. You should be

able to feel, even hear your tongue vibrating.

Right? So, that's what these signs... These

symbols mean, "vibrating".

The... This "th", which is the unvoiced, is using air. So, the position of the tongue

is the same. It's in front of your upper teeth,

except this time, you're not using your vocal

cords and you're not vibrating your tongue. You're blowing air between the tongue and

the teeth. So, then you have the sound of

breath. "Th", "th", "th". Try yourself. "Th",

"th". Okay? That's the difference between the two sounds. Air, vibration.

Then you have the letter "d", and the symbol,

the phonetic symbol is the same, so I didn't

write it. "Bred", "bred". So, here what you

have, you have the tip of the tongue hitting

the roof of the mouth. It's behind your upper

teeth. Right? Behind the upper teeth. It hits

the top of the mouth, and then a quick vibration

and let go. It releases from the top. So,

"d", "d". Notice that your tongue falls down.

Think about the "t" sound. "T". So, "t" is...

"t" and "d", the difference is the same as

voiced and unvoiced. "T", you're putting the

tip of your tongue against the roof of the mouth. You're quickly blowing out some air

and letting go of the tongue, separating the

tongue from the roof of the mouth. "D", no

air, just a quick vibration and let go from

the top. "D", "d", "d". Now, if you put your

hand to your mouth, you will feel air on your

hand. Same with breath, "th", "th", you should

feel air. But "th", "th", like the voiced, you won't feel any air. "Th", "th", no air

coming out. "Th", "th", air coming out. "D",

"d", "d", no air. "T", "t", air coming out.

That's how you know if you're saying it correctly or not correctly.

Now, let's practice a little bit. Notice the

sounds can come at the end of the word, the

middle of the word, the beginning of the word.

It doesn't matter the placement, you still

need to be conscious of what your tongue is doing and whether there's air or vibrations

involved. So, "heather", "heather". "Heather"

is a girl's name or a type of plant. "Heather",

"ether", "ether", "ether". "Header", "header".

"Header" is like you will see that in your

website or you will... In a newspaper, you

will see the header, like the top. "Header",

"heather", "ether", "header".

Now, where the problems are are when you're

trying to say one sound and you create a different

sound and sometimes you will just say a different

word. So, for example, if you're trying to

say "thread" but you end up saying "dread",

"dread", keep in mind that "dread" is an actual

English word. "Dread" means fear. "Thread", like if I pull out a string from my sweater

and pull it out, that is a thread. "Dread",

"to dread" is to fear something. So, "thread",

"thread". Say it with me. "Thread", "dread".

And also notice that "d" and "r", when they're

together, it sounds a little bit like a "jr".

"Dread". So, we don't say "dread". I'm just

saying it for you so you can hear it, but "dread".

"Dare", "dare". "Dare", "dare". Now, "dare" is also an English word. If someone dares

you to do something, it means they give you a

challenge to do it. "A dare" is a challenge.

"Dare" is "dare". "Dare", say it with me. "Dare", "dare", "dare", "dare". Okay?

So, again, you have to just keep practicing,

and repeat, and repeat. Eventually, you'll

be able to hear and say the difference.

"Thin", "thin". "Din", "din". "Din" means like a noise. So, if you walk into like a

high school cafeteria, you will hear a "din"

in the area because all the kids are talking

and screaming and moving around. So, "din"

is an actual word. "Thin" is an actual word,

like something is very thin. So, "thin", "din",

say after me. "Thin", "din". Now, I'm obviously

saying it very slowly and I'm enunciating the letters, but if you pull a thread from

the sweater, the whole sweater will fall apart.

If you pull a thread. The key is to be able

to connect these sounds and move on to the next sound very quickly. Okay?

"I dread the day that I find out something happened." Or, "My son dreads the first day

of school." "Dreads", "dreads". It's very natural, it flows into each other.

"There are five people here." "There are", "there are". "I dare you to do it." "I dare

you to", "dare you to". "He is very thin. He

needs to gain more weight. He's too thin."

There was a loud "din" in the school. There was a loud "din" in the school. Loud "din".

Loud "din". I'm just mixing the two "d's".

Okay? So, that's basically it. It's all about

practice and practice and practice, and what

a good thing you can do is take your phone

or cassette player or anything that you can

record yourself on, and make yourself a list

of "th" words that are voiced and unvoiced, and some "d" words with a "d" in them, and

just say them over and over again, and record

yourself. And then listen and make sure that

you can hear clearly different sounds. Three

different sounds. Three, three. There's another

one for you. You can put that on your list.

Okay? Now, unfortunately, I can't make a quiz

for this video because there's no audio on the

quiz platform, but if you have any questions

about it, please go to www.engvid.com. You can ask me there in the comments section.

I'll do my best to try to answer pronunciation-related

questions. And that's it. Practice, practice,

practice. If you like the video, give me a

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back soon. We'll do this again with vocab,

pronunciation, grammar tips, etc. See you then. Bye-bye.