How to Pronounce 'to the' in a Sentence: American English

In this American English pronunciation video, we're going to talk about how to reduce and

link the word 'to' and 'the' together, in a sentence, like this: to the.

I've spent quite a bit of time in my videos talking about reduction and linking. And today,

I want to take the specific case of linking the words 'to' and 'the', and talk about how

to simplify the mouth movement when we're reducing these words, linking them, and making

them very, very fast.

The first thing I want to point out, is that there doesn't have to be any movement in the

lips or the jaw: we can articulate this with just the tongue. To the. So, what are we doing

here. The word 'to' will reduce to either the true T-schwa sound, or the flap T-schwa

sound. But for both of them, the tongue position will be the same. So the tongue tip is up

at the roof of the mouth, tt, tt, tt, with the jaw quite closed and the teeth pretty

much together: tt, tt, dd, dd. And I can make that sound just by moving the tongue, the

jaw doesn't have to move: tt, dd, tt, dd. Now, to make the TH for the word 'the'. I

do not need to bring the tongue all the way through the teeth. I can just bring it down,

so it's touching just behind, where the teeth come together. To the. Let's look at this

up close and in slow motion.

The word T-H-E is pronounced with the EE vowel when the next word begins with a vowel or

diphthong. For example, to the other side, to the east. In these cases as well, all the

articulation will happen with the tongue.

It will probably take a good bit of time and drilling to get this new way of saying 'to

the' into your habit. But it is worth doing. Because when we simplify the mouth movement,

it means it's going to be easier to say it quickly in speech. And when we reduce and

pronounce these unstressed words very quickly like this, it provides a nice contrast for

the stressed words, which are much longer, and have a lot more shape. As you drill these

two words, put them into sentence fragments, and eventually sentences. To the. To the store.

To the restaurant. I'm going to the restaurant. It will really help you to integrate that

into your everyday speech.

That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.