Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: S+TH (again!)

.
How do I pronounce "sells the"? Do I reduce the sound TH, in your 
opinion? Is my pronunciation wrong or correct?
Thanks in advance!
Kiuhnm


It sounded just right to me.

 Is my pronunciation wrong or correct?
Quella di "sells the" va bene, per il resto...hai quel bellissimo suono 
italiano delle t e delle d che rende alcuni accenti italiani deliziosi! La 
parola che suona piů straniera č 'told', io non so cosa dicono le tue 
migliaia di testi in proposito, ma la vocale di told non rimane identica nel 
corso della pronuncia...io non so spiegarti meglio...il gruppo 'ol' nella 
parola deve essere sinuoso...ehm...okay, prova a sentirlo da qualcuno e poi 
mi dici come spiegarlo. ;)
Comunque c'č una distorsione della voce nella registrazione, sembra quasi 
una voce femminile! O forse č il mio computer.
ciao, Janis 

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I'm glad to hear that, because there's no "real" TH sound there.
What I say is "... sells /*@/ leftover ...".
where @ is the schwa and * is the (pseudo) TH sound pronounced with my 
tongue BEHIND my upper teeth as if I were to pronounce the sound /d/, 
but without actually touching my teeth, because a TH sound is fricative 
(i.e. the air flow through a narrow opening) and I want to preserve at 
least that!
I'm beginning to think that native speakers reduce much more than they 
think and learners reduce much less than they should. It's like one that 
try to jump over a 2 meters high obstacle for all his life and only 
afterwards find out that the obstacle was supposed to be 1 meter high. Ouch!
Kiuhnm

 una voce femminile! O forse è il mio computer.
lol!
No one ever told me I sound like a girl :-)
Kiuhnm

 meter high.
Questa ora da bravo la riscrivi altrimenti di lancio due fricative tra capo 
e collo!
ciao, Janis :* 

 ciao, Janis :* 
Thanks, Kiuhnm

 "ti" (little revenge :-) )
HAhaah dai ho il raffreddore! :) A parte gli scherzi, questo non e' un 
errore di ignoranza! non so perché ogni tanto mi parte qualche cosa 
sbagliata cosě, di solito mi succede solo in inglese! (giuro!)
ciao, J. 

 Anche se non mi e' chiaro cosa volessi dire.
forse era 'below' e allora ha piu' senso.
ciao, J. 

 errore di ignoranza!
Do you think that students write "He feel good" because they don't know 
that it should be written "He feels good"?
There are many levels of consciousness.
For instance, I know that "try" or "tries" were wrong, but I didn't 
think about that.
Kiuhnm

 think
Well , probably not one in a hundred thousand native speakers has ever 
thought about it at all .
You mentioned elsewhere pronouncing 'th' by putting the tip of the tongue 
between the teeth ; this is something I very rarely do .
Normally , depending on where the 'th' falls in the sentence , etc. , I 
either touch the back of the teeth with the tip of the tongue , or touch the 
tooth ridge (if that's the right word for the gum immediately above the 
teeth) with the area just before the tip of the tongue ; I wouldn't like to 
guess the relative frequencies of each .
Sometimes , it's quite true , the tongue doesn't quite touch either , when 
I'm speaking rather lazily and casually .
Mike 

 when I'm speaking rather lazily and casually .
Now, I'd like to know what's wrong with my 't's and 'd's. They don't 
sound too bad to me. Apart from the flaps in "butter" etc..., what's the 
difference between Italian and American dentals?
Kiuhnm

 difference between Italian and American dentals?
flaps or taps...
Kiuhnm


Well, I think you're exaggerating there. I estimated that in the UK every 
year there must be at least some 200 students graduating in phonetics or 
related subjects. The UK population is of about 61 million people, so your 
estimate just cannot possibly be true. Perhaps it's around 1 in 5000 or 1 in 
10000
Still pretty rare though, I'll own you that  :-)