Do you pronounce the th in sixth? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Do you pronounce the th in sixth?
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Wulfgar
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Message 25 of 33

29 December 2012 at 5:32am | IP Logged

hrhenry wrote:

I don't think "clothes" is the best example to trot out.

I was just curious about another "th" issue is English orthography. I pronounce it as "close", although I've heard the
th pronounced. On the other hand, this is the only time I can remember seeing "trot out". And I don't remember ever
hearing "fith", but I believe the folks who say they pronounce it that way.
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ling
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Message 26 of 33

29 December 2012 at 6:35am | IP Logged

Quote:

The example you noted is the glottal stop [ʔ], the same sound is found in
standard American pronunciation of mountain: /mauntɛn/ is realized as [mauʔn].

Or, [maunʔn]. That's how I pronounce it. My ex-gf dropped the first n and I used to
tease her about it.

tastyonions wrote:

I pronounce it "sixth." But I do leave out the second "f" in
"fifth," making it "fith."

I prounounce the "th" in "sixth". In fast speech, I barely prounounce the [s] component
of x, but it's there.

"fith" drives me batty.

tastyonions wrote:

MixedUpCody wrote:

In Most American's speech "writer" and "rider"
are pronounced exactly the same.

The words contain the exact same sounds for me, but when I say them, the first vowel in
"rider" is definitely longer than the first vowel in "writer."

I pronounce them with different vowel lengths too, and also with slightly different
vowel onsets: in "writer", the initial vowel sound is more like the "u" in "but".

I'm American: SF Bay Area.

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corcaighist
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Message 27 of 33

29 December 2012 at 12:41pm | IP Logged

Irish-English speaker here. Don't pronounce my 'th's.

'Third' rhymes with 'bird' and is a homophone with 'turd'. 'Clothes' is a homophone with 'close' and 'then' with 'den'.
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SallImSayin
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Message 28 of 33

03 January 2013 at 6:44am | IP Logged

I pronounce it "sixt" (sounds like sixed). I pronounce clothes both "cloze" (like close the door) and "clothes" (with the th pronounced) . I'm from Ohio. No accent.

Edited by SallImSayin on 03 January 2013 at 6:45am
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beano
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Message 29 of 33

03 January 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged

Do non-native speakers have trouble with the 'th' sound in English? It is a cliche that Germans say ze instead
of "the" but many of them do actually speak in this manner.
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jeff_lindqvist
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Message 30 of 33

03 January 2013 at 4:25pm | IP Logged

I'm not sure about Germans and /z/ (other than the stereotypical broken English in movies), but I have heard Swedes use /f/ instead of /th/ (think->fink, throw->frow, three-free and so on).
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sipes23
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Message 31 of 33

03 January 2013 at 4:30pm | IP Logged

SallImSayin wrote:

I pronounce it "sixt" (sounds like sixed). I pronounce clothes both "cloze" (like close the
door) and "clothes" (with the th pronounced) . I'm from Ohio. No accent.

What part of Ohio? People from Cleveland have no perceptible accent to my ears, but a girl I went to college with
who was from southern Ohio did (I remember her fondly). Sorry for the teasing. I just got finished with a
phonology class, and we did look at various English accents and couldn't resist.

But I'd say I might say [sɪkst] or [sɪksθ] depending on what comes next. Just fiddling with various things, I
suspect [t] before fricatives (as in [sɪkst floɹ] "sixth floor") and [θ] before stops (as in [sɪksθ gɹeʲd] "sixth grade"). I
could be very wrong indeed, but that's my gut feeling without a spectrograph. It also makes a pinch of sense
when viewed from a phonemic contrast angle.

Fifth is definitely [fɪθ] when I say it.
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tarvos
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Message 32 of 33

03 January 2013 at 4:32pm | IP Logged

jeff_lindqvist wrote:

I'm not sure about Germans and /z/ (other than the stereotypical
broken English in movies), but I have heard Swedes use /f/ instead of /th/ (think->fink,
throw->frow, three-free and so on).

Yes. Alternatively Dutch people say 't' for it, and 'd' for the soft version.

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