TH sound

Hi,

A little background, im Dutch and in my language there is no TH sound like the one in English (as in 'three or thief', and at the end of a word, as in 'with, month or death, etc')  and it's giving me some difficulties.

When I pronunciate three for example, it sounds more like "fhree", but when I hear it on TV or somewhere else I can hear a slightly harder T sound in it, which I'm unable to reproduce.
The method as I learned it is to put your tongue between your teeth against the upper teeth and force the air through the gap.
Could someone explain the exact method on how to make this sound in detail?

The same TH + plural sound is difficult for me as well. Like "months" ends up sounding like mon-f-s.
How am I supposed to pronunciate this properly?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Thanks for the advice, but it doesn't really help me any further unfortunately.
What I have the most trouble with is the TH sound at the end of a word as a plural (deaths, months, etc).
Unless I'm doing it completely wrong the TH sound is something like a cross between a T and an F,
but I'm having a very hard time going from an F sound to an S without having a short pause between the two letters.

I've searched around the web some for advice, but I can't really find anything that makes it crystal clear on how to
make this particular sound, any advice here would be appreciated.

If you are getting an F sound, you are touching your upper teeth to your lower lip, more or less biting your lower lip.  You'll never get a TH that way.   Get your lower lip out of the way!  Bite your tongue, not your lower lip!  Unless you are in danger of biting the tip of your tongue, you can't make a TH!

CJ

I spend a lot of my working day trying to help children achieve a "th" - it's certainly not just second language learners who find it hard!  Technically the advice about putting your tongue between your teeth is correct, but in reality it is pretty rare to actually do this in the pace of connected speech.

Something that often works for word final "th" is to think in terms of making a "s", then slightly pushing your tongue forward to touch back of your teeth.  You'll instinctively open your teeth a tiny amount to let the sound out, but don't push your tongue out between the teeth.  This will allow you to "get back" to the right place for a "s" if you need to for a plural without having a gap between the sounds.  (By the way, the English "s" is produced  just very slightly further forward than the Dutch "s", which is why the Dutch accent often sounds to us like "sh" rather than "s" - this might also be why you're finding it hard to get back in time to make the "s" on a plural.)

For word initial "th", first get a sense for where you are making your "t" sound (on the alveolar ridge behind your top teeth) by saying a word like "tank" over and over.  Now experiment in moving that forward very slightly, so that the very end of your tongue tip is gently touching the back of the 'cutting edge' of your top teeth - about as far forward as you can get without your tongue popping out.  This should give your "tank" more of a "thank" quality - as long as you do it gently.  Think in terms of making the sound slightly longer and less explosive.

Conchita57 wrote:

PS: Luckily for Spanish students, both English 'th' sounds are present in Castilian Spanish (in our 'z' and in our 'd') -- that's one less hurdle to overcome!

Are there only two 'th' sounds? I though there were three: that in "think", that in "there" and that in "Anthony" (I'm not sure about this one, is it different? People over here tend to say it like "think", but I've also heard it said differently). Anyway, although in Spanish we have the 'th' in "think", we don't have that in "there", do we? We tend to pronounce it like a 'd' but if I'm not wrong, it's not the same (one must kind of stick out one's tongue more).