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Pronunciation – TH – through, weather, lethal, breath, breathe
Did you know there are two ways to pronounce the “TH” sound in English? Find out the difference in sound between words like “three” and “the” or “breath” and “breathe” in this very important pronunciation lesson.
Quiz
Test your understanding of this English lesson
Test your understanding of the English lesson by answering these questions. You will get the answers and your score at the end of the quiz.Levels
Lesson Topics
228 COMMENTS
I’ve had 100 points! I want an award! ))
Thanks a lot for your excellent lessons and quizzes
An award? I usually give my students chocolate in class, but I don’t think that would survive in the mail. Sorry!
i got 10 correct out of 10
hi alex!
i come from vietnam
In your lesson, i heard that you said:”… has 2 different pronunciation” but i think that we have to use : 2 various pronunciation. Please tell me the difference between different and various !!!
i’m from VN , too. : ))
me too :))
How to recieve chocolate from Sir Alex!?
Hello Alex. I like your lessons very much. But I haven’t found a full lesson about transcription. I think it would be very useful for many people to see all signs of transcription and to hear it’s pronunciation by teacher.
jajaja. Thanks Alex….
Hi! Alex, i suggest question 5 has a wrong answer. According to quize it is “birthday”. I am positive there are all answers are wrond. No way “birthday” sounds like TH sound in word “three”. I looked up in the dictionary.[θ] sound belongs to “birthday”… Also there is a mistake in question 7. With has no a sound TH like in the word “three”.
thanks teacher
Thank you very much!
But any dictionary says that “th” in “with” sounds like “th” in “the”.
Can you comment it, please!
Thank you in advance!!!
Really? I’ll have to double check my dictionaries. I can maybe see if the next word starts with a vowel sound.
Example: “I need help with a problem.” vs. “I’m not good with people.”
Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that before, but now that you mention it, I do pronounce it both ways sometimes!
Sometimes there is no time to put the tongue between teeth, and then “th” sounds almost like “d”. Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nwbzoIP14E
I have to work a lot in my pronunciation. This lesson has helped me a lot. Thank you.
It was fun exercising my tongue.
Thanks
If someone was listening me practising it, then they would never guess what words I try to say. Specialy if th sound is in the middle of the word. This sound is extremly hard for me.
You also was born in Poland and You can pronounce it properly. Your case make me hopeful, that i will succeed with it too (i’m little older than 7 but maybe still not to old :) ).
The more you practice, the better you’ll get. Good luck!
I got 100 :D Thanx Guys . i’m Happey know . and nice way to explaine things .
Is there any difference between the “d” and the “th” in this, that, the, etc.
Are you asking if we pronounce “the” like “da”? It’s a common mistake, and the proper pronunciation for all the words you listed is the hard, vibrated/voiced “th” sound. The same one you hear in “brother,” “mother,” etc.
thanks teacher Alex … really nice and simple lesson
No problem! I’m glad you found it useful!
i found it useful because you teach it very well
please would explain to us in lesson about slang words..like :
gonna
gotta
kinda
ain’t
please teacher
We have some lessons on the site about these words. Use the search function. :) I did one for “sort of” and “kind of.”
Thanks Alex
Could you please make a video of lock, lack, look, luck differences in pronunciation
Why not? :) Thanks for the suggestion.
I got 100 % …very good!!!
Nice job!
Thanks a lot for the lesson. I have only checked Emma’s and your Vidlessons yet: very clear both of you. I’d like, if it is possible, a lesson about the word off. The meaning is not complicate to understand but, on the contrary, the use is confusing.
Thanks a lot for the lesson, Alex.I want to ask you about quiz. I got 100%. It’s good! But I always considered that “With” pronounce as (Z) sound.And I was confused the following:
7. Which word uses the same TH sound as “three”?
With
Mother
Brother
Lover
Alex, I also didn’t understand this part of quiz:
7. Which word uses the same TH sound as “three”?
With
Mother
Brother
Lover
Plese, comment why “with” is a correct answer?
Thanks Alex, I really like your pronunciation :)
Thanks for the lesson. I suggest to make a video about the pronunciation of the “i”. For expample, the diference between fill, dice. I Know that the pronunciation is diferent, but I don’t know why. I think is called short and long “i”.
That’s more of a problem with English spelling! We do have a lesson on the difference between it/eat fill/feel.
GOOD IDEA TEACHER!!
10/10 Thank You. Nice lesson.
Excellent Practice of this small part of IPA’s.
that was a very fun and interactive video :)
thumbs up for you Mr.Alex :D
thanks alex for the great video
Thanks a lot Alex for your excellent lessons and quizzes
thank you Alex, first for your great lessons and also for responding to comments :D
first of all I wanna say ..thank you so much for the lesson
then I’m a little confused between these two words
breath……breathe
why does the first pronounce like ” 8″
and the second pronounce like “9”
are they just one word and have the same meaning ?
………………..
and how I pronouce the word “suggestion”
many thanks in advance
is …’sug’ ‘Jestion’?
No they aren’t.
breath — this is a noun
breathe — this is a verb
So, you can say: “You have to breathe.”, “Take a deep breath.”
As to “suggestion” — /səɡˈdʒɛstʃən/ — many non native speakers do not pronounce both “g”.
thank you so Much dear brither for help.
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
And I also wanna thank dear teacher alex many thanks .may allah bless you .
“Breathe” is a verb. “You need to breathe to live.”
“Breath” is a noun. “I took a breath before starting my presentation.”
Suggestion is pronounced “suh-jestion.” The double g is pronounced as a single sound.
Alex, what about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAlpoP9eF3k
“suggestion” is around 3:50.
please this word too
“Bother”
th as the
or as three
thank you very very Much dear teacher
may allah bles you
“Bother” is TH as in “the.” Same with brother, mother, and father.
what the diferent (in meaning) between= breath and breathe??????????
“Breath” is a noun, “breathe” is a verb.
Thank you Alex.10 out of 10.
Thanks a lot teacher.You are a very good teacher.
Great!
Hi Alex,
I have 2 questions about the pronunciation of TH. When I’m watching series or listening to musics,often I hear words like “thin”,”think” and “thank you” being pronouced with a sound of “t” and words like “this”, “that”, and “although” I hear a sound of “d”.
Why this happen? Is wrong or just a matter of accent?
Bye for now!
I got eight out of ten.
Thanks alex for this lesson.it’s really usefull. you are a very good teacher.
Not only these sounds are funny, but also very difficult for Brazilian students since we don’t have them in our language.
It needed lots and lots of exercises, why is it so hard! Thanks Alex teatcher!
Please describe the difference between ( three and tree sound).
That is the phonetic symbol, not phonemic and that is the Phonetic Alphabet, not Phonemic! On other note, you are a great teacher! Could you also talk about the vowel in words like ‘cat’ and ‘pan’? It is difficult for foreigners, I think!
I found this:
“phonetic” is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human life
“phonemic” comprises the study of the sound system of a given language and is concerned with grammatical characterization of this system of the sound.
So, “phonemic” has to do with function, and phonetic with the form.”
So, it could be synonyms but slightly different. This sentence is form the eng wiki:
IPA is “used for phonetic and phonemic transcription of any language”
As mentioned, many pronunciation books use the terms interchangeably. I learned it as “phonemic” since a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that we use to generate meaning.
Thank Alex!I hope you’ll help me when i study English on this Web.I’m from in Viet Nam….You can repair some error in my comment.when i wrong OK? ^^
“I’m from Viet Nam. You can fix my errors when I’m wrong, okay?” :)
Very interesting video!
Me again! I have just created my account! First of all, I would like to thank all the engVid teachers who have spared no efforts to make this website function they way it does. Besides that, lots of people have benefited from your free lessons. I will be absorbing as much info as I can. Changing the suject – I remember when I started learning these two sounds 7 years ago. It was very funny and I struggled to pronounce them at first, but then they began to become more natural and simpler as I practiced them in front of the mirror and with my teacher.
Mirror practice can be very useful! Don’t be afraid to look foolish in the beginning.
I want to know: how to read the word “sixth”?
both “s” and “θ” will be read?
Hi Alex !
As far as I know the TH sounds as the one in three when it comes before a consonant or at the end of a word. But when it comes before a vowel I have no rule for that. Do you have a rule? THAN YOU IN ADVANCE.
Sadly, there is no absolutely consistent rule. Look at these examples:
Thee (hard TH)
Theme (soft TH)
Both are followed by the same vowel sound but have different pronunciations.
Teeth (soft TH)
Teethe (hard TH)
Both have the same vowel sound before, but different TH pronunciations after.
Now that I think about it, I can’t think of a single word that has a soft TH sound when the word ends in “er.”
Brother
Mother
Bother
Rather
Father
Gather
Soother
So that’s one rule you can likely apply.
Hi Alex ! this is Atef again ,
The single word that you are thinking of is PANTHER the TH sounds soft as in three.
THANK YOU ANY WAY THAT HOW IT IS ENGLISH PRONUNCIATIONS.
Yeah, I realized that as soon as I posted the comment. :p Thanks!
thanks Alex, its very usefull!
What about questions № 7 ? In oral practice my teacher and all my friend pronounce TH (in with) sound like the. hm..
As mentioned above, I pronounce it both ways and have heard it pronounced both ways.
Thanks Alex, I love this lesson.
Where have you taught in Canada? (besides engVid)? All teachers are from Canada, my teacher?
Yes, we are based in Canada.
Thank you Alex. Very useful. Although my English listening skill is very low,
I can understand almost all you say. I like your lessons and
I think you are a very good teacher.
hello, My name is Moussaab, and I have an English learning page on facebook where I share your content.
what I would like to say, is to suggest to you to be one of my administrators on that page and share all your content at the same time of yours.
I’m sorry, but that would not be possible. We already have our own Facebook page where we upload content.
what i mean is to share the content of your facebook page on mine too , that would give you twice oppotunity to have audience :)
My first lesson here) and first 10 of 10!) Thank you, Alex! I was looking for such site and now I`m here and I already love it!
These pronunciations are the greatest things to do for me I’ll succueed the day when “les poules auront des dents !”( When pigs can fly) ! Kind regards
This is great but you might want to consider the movement of your tongue, which you do perfectly.
When you make either \th\ sounds, your tongue goes out between your teeth and you pull it in.
This would help your foreign students.
Very useful lesson! Thank You very much, Alex!
these pronuciations are very dificult to me speak. I’m brazilian. My goal is speak and listen english fluently.
yes I have the same problem. i’ll succeed the day where “pigs fly” in French “when hen will have teeth” ! In fact I have a slghtly lisp anyhow my wife is native engish speaker and when I pronounce these words. She laughs and say that is very sweet so don’t worry about that. Englsh speakers like this way to speak
hi, Alex. we forgive you for that mistake at the black board (kidding). i like your classes so much. thank you. in this lesson, i could solve my questions about the pronunciation of the article “the”. you pronounced it really clearly, so now i know how to pronounce it. thank you very much.
Thank you for your lesson it was very interesting
i got 9 on the quiz
by the way i am a new member and i have a ver bad english
in schoo”l all my friends get mock”
hope that i will have a better english
thk you again <3
Thanks teacher Alex … really nice and simple lesson
Amazing Lesson teacher, Thanks!
The “TH” sound really makes the difference!You look much more fluent if you pronounce it correctly!
thanks Alex
excuse me Mr Alex but I modestly think that the word ‘with” is pronounced as “the” sound. and that’s why I got 90 out of 100.
No worries. I’ve heard it pronounced both ways, but I personally use the soft TH pronunciation. If you use the hard TH pronunciation, that’s alright too.
thank alex for your concern.however we need a lesson on both all consernant and vowel sound
Sounds like a great idea for a long future lesson!
Professional instructor and great lesson , that’s pretty awesome Mr . Alex i hope you always present lessons who are like that because they’re many buddy have problem in pronunciation thx alot :)
Very good, thanks!
when i took the quiz
this Q
Which word uses the same TH sound as “three”?
With
Mother
Brother
Lover
and they said that the answer is with who come?
As mentioned above, “with” is pronounced both ways by native speakers. Most Canadians I know use the soft TH pronunciation for it, so perhaps it’s typical pronunciation in my area!
it’s diffcult to learn for me. i am not a english location. thx for chance to watch
Dear teacher ALEX,CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I always found how hard it is to teach The IPA for my private students. I found a very easy way to teach now my Brazilian students everything you teach on proninciation and Grammar. This is my first time acessing this wonderful electronic address and now I am sure that I can count on yr experience to make my classes clearer, shorter and more practical. Thank you very much for all yr effrts!!
George frm Macae – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
Alex sir good morning,
i feel happy when solved quiz and got 80 after learning from u.
i could learn how to pronounce TH and i hope i will learn more.
thanks my the best teacher but i have notice about (( with )) when i put it in macmillan dictionary it say like ( the , thick )) it have two sound ?? excuse me can you explain for me
thanks my the best teacher but i have notice about (( with )) when i put it in macmillan dictionary it say like ( the , thick )) it have two sound ?? excuse me can you explain for me
You’re right. Even dictionary.com has both pronunciations listed. Like I mentioned above, I have also heard both ways used.
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/with
thanks alex your voice is so cute and real
HELLO i ALEX YOU DONE GREAT JOB , I HAVE LEARN ALOT OF THINGS HERE , THAT I CONFUSED OFTEN WITH THAT . ACTUALY I HAD BEEN USE OFTEN MOUNTH , NO BODY UNDERSTOOD WHAT I MEAN AND LIKE THAT , FOR EXAMPLE WEATHER , THEY ASK AGIAN, WHAT DOSE MEAN , CAUSE I CAN`T TO PRONOUCE IT GOOD , SO NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT IS WORNG WITH ME . THANKS FOR GREAT LESONS. GOOD LUCK FOR ALL
There is mistake in quiz
The word “with” it must be say as “the”
But quiz say it like “three”
Am I wrong or quiz ??
hi how are u doing alex .. thanks for the lesson as it was very helpful for me
ps : the question number seven in the quiz i thought that there is no ‘th’ sound like the word ‘three’ in the first 3 answers and the fourth answer was the word lover which have no ‘th’ in it
and that’s why i picked it lol
Thanks so much Mr. Alex. Its very useful.
You are great, Alex. Thanks.
Hi alex, i am from Philippines, the way you teach english pronunciation really helped me a lot to improve my own pronunciation. Thank you very much
You are great sir. Thank you so much.
Thanks all “Teachers” for all your free lessons.It is really worthy. Thanks a lot a lot a lot…..
This lesson helped a lot, especially to pronounce the final “s” or “ed” if it is “s” and “z” or “t” and “d”.
thanks again.that helped me a lot because i was confused of the word ending pronunciation.Thanks,thanks, teacher Alex
thanks Alex and looking forward for some more lessons like this…
Happy X-Mas to all engvid team and lots of thanks to all of you for your great effort for improving our english.
thank you so much
Thank you Alex for the first lesson , I well listen to you again and again
thanks a lot i have the problem of my pronounciation it helping a lot,now ive got a perfect from the quiz.hurray,sir alex!
It’s my first lesson here, and I got 100 points, Alex you are a fantastic teacher. LOL
By the way, I’m from Spain, greetings to everyone!
thanks it was so helpful lesson for me …
I got 100 points…. Ehhhh Brazil-zil-zilllll
*
The teachers are awesome. This is why we get high score
Hi, Alex! 10 point.
Hi Alex
I have a question for you. I remember I was in Walmart the other month and I asked a staff to help me to find a non alcoholic beer and I used “without alcohol” with “TH” sound as “three” BUT he couldn’t understand me. However I gave it a shot and used “T” sound rather than “TH” sound he said OK now I know you are looking for beer “witout!!!! alcohol”. So I’m confused really :(
Thanks Alex for your great class as always.
I got 70 % :(
thank you alex for lesson
Thank’s teacher Alex.
thank you so mach
How to know when to pronunce soft and hard TH ? I mean, is there any rule for that ? Thanks !
Thank you teacher Alex, this lesson is very useful
These sounds are funny and close to. Sometimes I get confused on how to pronounce them. The class were great and I practice the sounds trying my best. Tks for the class
9 correct out of 10 – Thomas from Poland thx
is there a rule to differentiate between the pronounciation of both? i thought before that the rule for the former is that for nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs, while the later will pronounced for articles, demonstratives and common place adverbs.
so what is the rule to pronounce both of them? i thought before that the rule for the former is that for nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs while the later is for articles, demonstratives, common place adverbs, so is it right or wrong?
Thank a lot for all your lessons. I really enjoy all of them. You are a perfect skillful teacher.
Thanks for explaining the phonetic differences of the “TH”
how is the three and with in Q 7 ….are same th sound
could u plz explain
ty
I want,I need,I’ll to learn english.
think you very much teacher Alex ,in all my life I never pronoced with as THREE but as THE , THINK YOU AGAIN
It really helped me, thank you!
It helped me too.. pronunciation is the most dificult part in english for me
I can only agree with you. It is really the hardest one)
Wonderful. I learn a lot. Thank you!
Thanks for your videos.
I learned ‘with’ is pronounced in two ways, soft ‘TH’ and hard ‘TH’.
When I go to Canada next time, I listen to how Canadians pronounce ‘with’ carefully.
It is very curious for me.
great………
I think It´s very important the pronunciation. I´m practising much time. It´s a good exercise.
Thanks Alex
Why did nobody teach me pronunciation when I was a child????
:( 80%
Hi, I’m really confused about question 7. Why the answer is (with)? could you explain,please?
Thanks Alex…
If you know phonemic simbols you can pronounce any word by finding them in a dictionary, but if you find a word you don’t know and you don’t have a dictionary with you it’s impossible to pronounce it, isn’t it?
thank you very very Much dear teacher
Alex, hi!
Could you answer. there are too many dictionaries where “with” pronounce with the same TH sound like “this”
HA ha ha ha ha HAHA hhhhhh
i love this lesson
i love english
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Oh, thank you so much for this lesson, i really have problems with my pronunciation in “th” sound.
In Brazil we don’t have this phoneme to most of us it’s very difficult. Thank you for this lesson!
I got correct 9 out of 10.I have got good pronunciation.I have pronunciation very easily.I appreciate for this.thank
May I ask that is there any different between “of” and ” ‘s”?
how to use “want, intend and attempt”? thank u for good teaching
I got 7 correct out of 10.
Thank you very much for this lesson Mr Alex.
Thanks a lot Alex.
Hey, in my first try I was very bad, But I Wacthed the lesson again and I got 100 points!
Thanks.
Hey Alex… You are a great Teacher, I would like to have A class related to connectors Like however,thereford,even, and even though when use those.
thanks,
Edwin.
thank you Teacher for the lesson but you said the Th like 3 is funy sound but It’s arabic Character ث thank you again
sorry I MEAN FUNNY
I’m sorry again this comment must be on the frist lesson ^_^
hahaha the picture of the lesson deceived me this is the rigt lesson sorry for puting more than one comment.
It’s a really funny sounds. But, ok! I need to learn.
Alex this is most interesting lesson but still i cant say this that correctly
thank you so much Adam. This is thing im wondering!
sorry, Alex, not Adam )
Thanks.It is interesting topics.
Thank you for the lesson!
There is a mistake in the quiz, point 7…
Would you like to tell us please if we can use the verb to have in Present Continuous form?
Thank you in advance!
I got 100 %! Ya~y :D But I’m not accustomed to pronounce “th” (thought, three, thank, etc.) yet. Never give up! Thank you, Alex :)
i try this. thankyou have a nice day
oh.I got 80%.thanks !
got 10. can’t beleive
got 10. i can’t beleive it hahah tnkx a lot.
yehey!perfect!superb
Thank a lot, but it sound difficult.
Your lessons are very useful and simple! Thank you!!!!!!
I love that guy. He’s a perfect teacher
Thanks sir I got 90%.
Thank you very much for this lesson, it’s very helpful!!!!
ALEX AND WHEN WE SAYS “TRUE” I THINK IT’S CLOSE WITH THE WORD THROUGHT ..ISN’T???
THANKS
YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS ONE STARTS WITH “TH” AND THE OTHER WITH “T”! ALSO TRY turning off caps lock because it makes it sounds like you’re shouting :P
I got 8 correct out of 10. Thank you Alex.
CANADIANS ARE GOOD TEACHERS!
Hi teacher Alex! I got 100! Thanks a lot for the lesson! It’s really a great help specially for Asian people… God bless you more!
Hi.. Sir..thank a lot for this lesson..I got 8 correct out of 10..
Hi,Alex! I love your lesson!Thank you,you ma me better every day
sorry…I love your lesson but my grade is now low..I promise to practice every day
Thanks very much Alex your lessons are very good !! A question but I think I know the answer… Are there rules to know when it is th with or without vibration?
6/10 =(
10 of 10 thank you so much Alex.
Hi Alex! I have a problem pronouncing letter “L” in some words, depending on it position in a word. Sometimes it sounds like “V”. It was found a long ago by my teacher who recorded my speech, however, I still have this problem. It often cause misunderstanding during a conversation. Alex, what do you think I can do? are you planning to have a lesson for “L” pronunciation? Thank you! Miron (mteshler@gmail.com)
I got 10/10. Thanks for the “TH” for tonight. I can bring “TH” at WORK. lol. Seriously! THanks.
I got 9/10
It’s really a challenge for me to say words with th sounds (voiced and unvoiced) because we don’t have such sounds in our language. Thanks Alex.
I wish I can practice talking to someone in English.
thank you, Alex.
This video is really helpful. Thanks Alex :)
This was really helpful.
thanks a lot Alex
70 tnx. :)
Thanks you so much
This video really helped me.Thank you.
I have issues with pronunciation. I can’t say some words. What should I do?
Hi Alex from Venezuela! You are a great teacher. Thanks for the TH sound lesson!
Hi teach! Thank you for your class. I realy like and healp me a lot. Bye!
I got 7/10. I have to improve my pronunciation! Thanks Alex. This is a great lesson!
I GET 9
thanks！
i got 6/10 I am terrible…, I will try again
I got 10/10 OMG, THank you Alex!!!
Thanks Alex!
Now, I gotcha, I can easily differentiate among both sounds. Thanks to tons, Alex! – I had gotten 80, just two mistaken answers. Keep it up posting videos with that clear understandable accent.
Alex, thank you very much for your interesting and useful lessons! Good job! But I have a question regardlee the quiz.
Which word uses the same TH sound as “three”?
With
Mother
Brother
Lover
The answer which is marked by system as correct is “with”. But I’ve checked in the dictionary and found that it was \ð\ sound. In “three” we have /θriː/.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/three
That’s interesting! It seems like there are different pronunciations – in some places the “th” in “with” is /ð/ and in others /θ/. In North America (where Alex is), it is nearly always pronounced the same way as “three”.
in portugueses we don´t have this sound “TH”, is very hard for our. excellent class.
Listen and repeat:
“Th th th thrrrrow throw, lethal lesal lethal, brease breate breathe, base bathe …”
I would like to be able to pronounce “TH” without tripping on my tongue ;)
And I appreciate to have your rule: A word has a hard TH sound when it ends in “-er”.
Thanks Alex!
I’ve two questions:
1. pronounce “without” like “lethal” or “weather”?
2. Maybe another rule: A word has a hard TH sound when it ends in “-the”?
I’ve had 100 points! I want an award, yesssss
Than you so much Alex
thank a lot