These are the next two consonant sounds
that we will target: // as in 'thin' and // as in 'then'.
I saved the best two sounds
until last. These are perhaps the most
challenging consonant sounds in English
because they're very different from
sounds of other languages. The reason is
that we use a different part of our
mouth to produce the sound, and the shape and the form of the tongue is quite
unusual. First of all which sound is
voiced and which one is unvoiced? Have a
listen // as in thin and // as in then. The first one is unvoiced. Put your hand over
your throat //. And the second one is voiced //
Now, how do we make these sounds in
English? What we do is we put the tongue
against our top teeth like this. And then
we push the air through the gap between
the teeth and the tongue, and this
produces air and produces the sound that
we want. // // as in thin and // as in then. The reason so many people struggle with this
sound is that usually, in some languages anyway, all the sounds are made within
the mouth. But this one is a bit unusual
because we have to actually put our
tongue outside our mouth. So it feels a
bit strange and unusual but you have to
practice and you will become perfect.
So let's look at the first target sound
practice list. Notice the symbol on
the left. This is the symbol for the
unvoiced sound and also notice the
spelling. It's always 'th' so that makes it
quite easy in a sense. Listen to the
words and repeat after me. Remember this
is the unvoiced sound. Thick. Three. Think.
Author. Something. Month. South. Thursday.
Maths. Don't worry if it feels a bit
strange putting your tongue out of your
mouth, just keep practicing and it will
become more natural. So that was the
unvoiced sound, now let's move on to the
voiced sound.
Have a look at this word list. Remember to use your voice when you
produce these sounds. Notice again the
symbol on the left. This represents the
voiced 'th' sound and the spelling, like
before, is always 'th'. Listen and repeat.
They. Their. Mother.
Brother. Weather. Other. Together. These.
Feather. I hope those exercises have
helped you to produce the sounds more
clearly. Now let's move on to the next
part,
the comparison pairs. On the left we have
words containing the unvoiced sound and
on the right we have words containing
the voiced sound. So these are not
minimal pairs because actually there are
very very few minimal pairs for these
two sounds. These are comparison pairs. The words
are not the same, but similar. But
importantly, they contain a target sounds.
So have a listen to each pair and repeat
after me
focusing on the target sounds. Thin, this.
Throw, though. Breath, breathe.
Cloths, clothes.
Thank, than. Three, there. There you go.
Remember to go back and keep practicing
using the exercises in these lectures.
Now let's move on to the final part, the
target sounds in use. Let's look at the
first sentence which is targeting the
unvoiced // sound. Remember to use your tongue against the top teeth and push
the air through. Listen and repeat. Three
thoughtful authors thanked Katherine.
And sentence two is targeting the voiced
sound // //
Listen and repeat. These clothes are
bigger than those clothes. And the
third sentence is targeting both sounds.
Listen and repeat. There's a feather on
this leather jacket, and I think there's
something on your mouth. So there we have
it, the final two consonant sounds done. Remember to download the extra resources,
the PDFs, the MP3s. And, very importantly, for this particular lecture,
look at the extra video so that you can see the close-up of my mouth producing the sounds.
You can mimic how I do it. So grab those and I'll see you in the next lecture.