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 o
f 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 to
ngue 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 comi
ng 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 plan
t. "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 actua
l 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 ar
ound. 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 sc
hool." "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 audi
o 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 like. Don't forget to
subscribe to my channel, and ring the bell if
you want notifications of future videos, new
videos. And we'll come back soon. We'll do
this again with vocab, pronunciation, grammar tips,
etc. See
you then. Bye-bye.
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