How to pronounce the English "th" sound

The “th” in think and the “th” in this are two of the rarest sounds in the world’s languages. If your first language doesn’t have them — and most don’t — your mouth has simply never been asked to make them. That’s the whole problem, and the good news is that it’s a mechanical one you can solve with a few minutes of focused practice.

There are two “th” sounds, not one

English spells two different sounds with the same two letters:

• The voiceless /θ/ — as in think, bath, month. Your vocal cords don’t vibrate.
• The voiced /ð/ — as in this, mother, breathe. Your vocal cords do vibrate.

The tongue position is identical for both. The only difference is whether your voice is switched on. Put a hand on your throat: on this you’ll feel a buzz, on think you won’t.

What your tongue is actually doing

The tip of your tongue lightly touches the bottom edge of your upper front teeth — or peeks just barely between your teeth. Air flows continuously over the tongue and out. Nothing is blocked; it’s a soft, steady friction, not a burst.

Why it’s so hard for learners

Your brain has spent years mapping speech sounds onto the set your first language uses. When a genuinely new sound arrives, it gets “rounded off” to the nearest familiar one. Which substitute you reach for depends on your language background:

• Speakers of many European languages tend to swap in /s/ and /z/ — think becomes sink.
• Speakers of several others reach for /t/ and /d/ — this becomes dis.
• Some substitute /f/ and /v/ — three becomes free.

None of these are laziness. They’re your brain doing exactly what it’s supposed to do — it just needs a new target.

The most common mistakes

Beyond the substitutions above, two patterns show up constantly:

1. Forgetting the voicing difference. Learners often make both “th” sounds voiceless, so breathe (verb) and breath (noun) collapse into one word.
2. Turning the friction into a stop. If you tap the tongue and release like a /t/, you lose the continuous airflow that defines the sound. Keep the air moving.

Drills that actually work

Short and frequent beats long and occasional. Two or three minutes a day for a week will do more than one long session.

1. Minimal pairs. Say them slowly, side by side, exaggerating the contrast: think / sink, thin / tin, three / tree, they / day, then / den.
2. Voicing switch. Hold one long /θ/, then flip your voice on to turn it into /ð/ without moving your tongue. Feel the throat buzz appear and disappear.
3. Loaded sentences. Repeat a line packed with the sound: “The three brothers thought this weather was worth it.”
4. Record and compare. Say a word, listen back against a reference, and adjust. Your ear improves faster than your mouth, so use it to steer.

The goal isn’t a perfect “th” in isolation. It’s a “th” that survives inside real sentences, at real speed, without you thinking about it.

Turn the drill into real reps

Reading about the sound gets you the map. Getting the reps — with feedback on whether you actually hit the target — is what rewires the habit. That’s the gap the Lingovea tools are built to close.