Our next pronunciation lesson is about the sounds /ɜ:/ and /ð/ to practise the correct pronunciation of some common words such as world, turn, there, with and others.
Section One: Spotting the problem
There are a number of everyday words in which the sound /ɜ:/ is often mispronounced. Some examples, as pronounced by students:
learn, work, return, earn, confirm, bird, shirt
The mispronunciation of /ð/ often occurs in the following words:
there, with, this, that, these, those, they and weather.
Section Two: Correcting the problem
Do you remember our lesson about the /r/ sound? We're going to use the same example, that of a ‘growling dog’, to get the hang of today's /ɜ:/ sound. However, this time we're going to drop the /r/ from the ‘growl’ and focus on the vowel sound only. Instead of saying confirm, earn, girl or return we're going to use only one vowel sound, the /ɜ:/, for all these words.
Listen:
| /ɜ:r/ | /ɜ:/ | confirm | /ɜ:r/ | /ɜ:/ | girl |
| /ɜ:r/ | /ɜ:/ | earn | /ɜ:r/ | /ɜ:/ | return |
What about our other sound for today? Well, if you remember, in a previous lesson we practised the /z/ sound, the one we tagged as a ‘mosquito’ or ‘bee’ sound. Now building on this /z/, we'll shape it into our /ð/ target sound.
Our /z/ words this time will be: please, eyes, quiz, zebra, zoo. Now, let's say them again, pronouncing the /z/ sound in each with the tip of our tongue between our lower and upper teeth. Here's what I mean: please, eyes, quiz, zebra, zoo.
You must keep the /ð/ buzzing between your teeth; this is key. If not, you'll be making a different sound.
All you need now is to observe this /ð/ sound you're making. Take this sound, and apply it in the following words to pronounce the "th" in each one correctly:
there, with, this, that, these, those, they, weather
Section Three: Practice
Listen and repeat. The letters for the target sounds are underlined.
| /ɜ:/ | /ð/ |
turn | the |
pearl | then |
perks | brother |
T-shirt | mother |
terminal | father |
journalist | further |
research | weather |
Section Four: Memorize
I suggest that you learn some of the following examples by heart.
/ɜ:/
- The girl never returned.
- See the first shirt on the left?
- Some birds can say complete words.
/ð/
- This weather is perfect.
- Is this your brother?
- It's over there. Come with me.
Good work! Keep practising!
