How to Pronounce the TH Sound in English (Voiced & Voiceless)

Key takeaways

• English has two TH sounds: voiceless /θ/ as in think, and voiced /ð/ as in this.
• Both sounds use the same mouth position — tongue tip lightly at your upper front teeth — but the voiced one adds vibration from your vocal cords.
• Almost every English word that starts with TH uses /θ/, except a small group of common grammar words like the, this, that, they, there, which use /ð/.
• The fastest self-check is your hand on your throat: a buzz means /ð/, no buzz means /θ/.
• TH is rare across the world's languages, which is why learners substitute /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, or /f/ — it's a muscle habit, not a talent problem.

TH is the sound that makes many learners stop mid-sentence. It doesn't exist in most languages, so your mouth has no habit for it yet. That's why think often comes out as sink, fink, or tink.

Here's the good news: TH is one mouth position with one small variation. Once your tongue finds the right spot, both versions follow. This guide shows you where to put your tongue, how to tell the two TH sounds apart, which words to practice first, and why the sound is genuinely difficult — not just for you.

What is the TH sound in English?

The TH sound is a dental fricative — you make it by pushing air through a narrow gap between your tongue and your upper front teeth. In English, this letter combination represents two consonants: the unvoiced TH /θ/ and the voiced /ð/.

According to Wikipedia's overview of the pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩, the two letters th usually represent either the voiced dental fricative /ð/, as in this, or the voiceless dental fricative /θ/, as in think. A quick note: this spelling gives no reliable clue about which form you need in a given word.

That means you learn TH words by word, not by rule. It sounds like extra work, but the list of everyday words is short and you already use most of them daily. Nothing fully closes in your mouth when you make TH, so it's a continuous sound — you can hold it as long as your breath lasts. Try it: /θθθθθ/.

What's the difference between voiced and voiceless TH?

The difference depends on whether your voice box makes your vocal cords vibrate. Voiceless /θ/ is just air. Voiced /ð/ adds a buzz from your throat.

Put two fingers on the front of your throat and say think. Now say this. In this, you should feel a vibration under your fingers. In think, you shouldn't. You should feel your throat vibrate on /ð/ but not on /θ/. That's the entire difference — your tongue and teeth do exactly the same job in both.

There's a second self-check that works even better, and it uses a piece of paper. According to the Wikipedia overview of English ⟨th⟩, /θ/ is pronounced with more muscular tension and stronger aspiration than /ð/, and you can demonstrate this by holding your hand or a piece of tissue in front of your mouth. Say thin, and the paper moves. Say this, and it barely does. If your paper doesn't move on thin, you're probably not making /θ/ at all.

The symbols make this visible too. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, think is transcribed /θɪŋk/ in both British and American English, with /θ/ as its first sound. Look up any TH word in a dictionary and the first symbol tells you which sound to use — /θ/ or /ð/, the voiced TH sound.

How do you pronounce the voiceless TH /θ/?

For voiceless TH, rest your tongue tip lightly between the teeth or just behind the upper teeth, then blow air out without using your voice.

According to the University of Groningen's open textbook An Introduction to American English Phonetics, General American /θ/ is made with the tongue tip in light contact with the inner edge of the upper front teeth while resting on the edge of the lower front teeth, and the air escapes with weak friction. Two words there matter: light and weak. TH is a gentle sound, not a forceful one.

Follow these four steps:

1. Relax your jaw and open your mouth a little — about the width of your little finger.
2. To get the right tongue position, put the tip of your tongue lightly between the top and bottom teeth or let it touch just behind the top teeth. It should just touch, not press.
3. Blow air out gently, with air coming between your tongue and your top front teeth as you push air without using your voice.
4. Add the rest of the word: /θ/ + ink = think.

The most common mistake is pulling the tongue back and making /s/ instead. If think sounds like sink, your tongue is too far back. Many learners also confuse this sound with /t/ or /d/, and some people pronounce it as an f sound or an s sound instead. Exaggerate on purpose at first — push the tip slightly between your teeth so you can see it in a mirror. You can pull it back to a natural position once the sound is automatic.

Practice these words with the voiceless /θ/:

• think
• thank
• three
• thirty
• thousand
• thick
• month
• months
• birthday
• healthy
• north
• math
• both
• mouth
• nothing
• teeth
• truth
• earth
• path
• author

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How do you pronounce the voiced TH /ð/?

For voiced TH, use the same tongue position as /θ/ but add voicing. The buzz should start at the same moment the air does.

An easy way in: hold a long voiceless /θθθθ/, and while you're still holding it, switch your voice on without moving your tongue. You'll hear the sound change from a hiss to a buzz. That switch is /ð/.

Here's something most guides skip. According to the same Groningen phonetics textbook, General American /ð/ is usually a voiced dental approximant rather than a true fricative — the contact is light and brief, and little or no friction happens at all. A clearly fricative /ð/ belongs to careful, deliberate speech and singing. In practice, that means voiced TH is quieter and faster than learners expect. This softer version is especially common in spoken English, and it often shows up in the middle of words like mother and weather. In normal speech, the and that almost melt into the words around them. A soft, quick /ð/ sounds far more natural than a heavy one.

Practice these words with the voiced /ð/:

• there
• then
• mother
• father
• brother
• other
• another
• weather
• together
• either
• neither
• rather
• clothes
• clothing
• smooth
• breathe
• leather
• southern

Where exactly should your tongue go for the right tongue position?

Both positions are correct: the tongue tip can sit slightly between your teeth or just behind your top front teeth, depending on the word and how fast you're speaking. Neither one is wrong.

According to the Wikipedia overview of English ⟨th⟩, both dental fricatives are pronounced either interdentally, with the tongue tip protruding slightly, or with the tip against the back of the upper teeth. For some speakers these two positions vary freely; for others, the behind-the-teeth position appears specifically next to /s/ or /z/, as in myths and clothes. Unlike /f/, TH is not made by touching the bottom lip to the teeth.

That last detail explains a problem many learners hit. Words like myths, months, clothes, and sixths are hard because you have to move from TH straight into a /s/ or /z/ sound. Native speakers solve it by pulling the tongue back a little. So if months feels impossible, don't push your tongue out — pull it in behind your teeth and let the two sounds blend. This is also why using the interdental position while you're learning is a smart teaching trick, not a rule: it makes the sound visible so you can check yourself in a mirror.

How do you know which TH to use?

There's one strong rule for when a word begins with TH and two useful patterns for the rest.

The strong rule: according to the Wikipedia overview of English ⟨th⟩, almost all words beginning with a dental fricative use the voiceless /θ/, and only a small set of common function words use the voiced /ð/. That set is short enough to memorize today, and it usually makes more sense after enough listening and repetition:

the, this, that, these, those, they, them, their, then, there, than, though, thus, thence.

If a word starts with TH and it isn't on that list, use /θ/: think, thank, three, Thursday, thin, thought, thirty, thousand.

**Pattern two — TH between two vowels is usually voiced.**Mother, brother, weather, together, either, other. Compare mother /ð/ with month /θ/, where the TH sits next to a consonant.

Pattern three — a silent e at the end usually turns TH voiced. Learn these in pairs:

When is TH not a TH sound?

Sometimes the letters th are pronounced differently and aren't a TH sound at all, and knowing the exceptions saves you from over-correcting.

According to the Wikipedia overview of English ⟨th⟩, th occasionally represents a plain /t/, as in Thailand and Thomas. In eighth it's often pronounced /tθ/. And in compound words like lighthouse, the t and h belong to different parts of the word, so they're two separate sounds — not a digraph at all.

Names are the trap here. Thomas, Theresa, Anthony, and Thames are commonly said with /t/, while Thomson and Thames trip up even confident speakers. When you meet a name with th, check a dictionary and listen to an entry or native model before you begin using it aloud rather than guessing.

Why is the TH sound so hard for language learners?

TH is a very common sound in English, even though it is difficult for many speakers learning the language because most languages don't have it, so your mouth reaches for the closest sound it already knows.

According to Wikipedia's article on the voiceless dental fricative, /θ/ is rather rare as a phoneme among the world's languages, even though it appears in some of the most widely spoken ones. The same source names the three standard substitutions linguists observe: th-alveolarization (TH becomes /s/ or /z/), th-stopping (TH becomes /t/ or /d/), and th-fronting (TH becomes /f/ or /v/). In practice, learners often replace TH with other sounds such as /t/, /d/, /s/, or /z/.

Which one you use usually depends on your first language:

• Speakers of French, German, and many Slavic languages tend toward /s/ and /z/: sink for think, zis for this.
• Speakers of Hindi, Tamil, and Irish-influenced English tend toward /t/ and /d/: tink for think, dis for this.
• Speakers of Japanese and Korean also commonly reach for /s/ and /z/, since /θ/ isn't part of the sound system.

None of this is a defect and none of it is permanent. It's a motor habit, and motor habits respond to repetition. The Groningen phonetics textbook even notes that non-native speakers attempting a dental /θ/ often produce a combined lip-and-teeth sound instead — and that the result is usually still perfectly acceptable to listeners, though these substitutions can sometimes affect meaning or cause confusion. Being understood comes long before sounding native.

Do native speakers always pronounce TH?

No. Plenty of native accents replace TH entirely, and those accents aren't errors.

According to Wikipedia's article on th-fronting, speakers in parts of London, Essex, and other regions pronounce /θ/ as /f/ and /ð/ as /v/, so three sounds like free and further sounds like furver. And according to Wikipedia's article on th-stopping, speakers of Indian English and many Irish English varieties use dental stops instead — but they keep the words distinct, so thin still doesn't sound like tin.

Why this matters for you: the goal isn't a specific accent. The goal is being clearly understood, and keeping word pairs like thin and tin, or three and tree, distinct enough that nobody has to ask you to repeat yourself. If your TH lands slightly soft, that's an accent. Millions of people have one.

How can you practice the TH sound every day?

The best practice is short, spoken out loud, and repeated daily. Five to 10 minutes a day beats an hour on the weekend, because pronunciation is muscle memory and muscles learn from frequency.

Try this five-step routine:

1. Mirror check (one minute). Say /θ/ and /ð/ and watch your tongue. If you can't see the tip, push it forward.

2. Throat check (one minute). Alternate think — this — think — this with your hand on your throat, feeling the buzz switch on and off.

3. Minimal pairs (three minutes). Say these pairs slowly, then faster: think/sink, thin/fin, three/tree, they/day, then/den, breathe/breed, mouth/mouse.

4. Sentences (three minutes). Start with a tongue twister: Thirty-three thieves thought they thrilled the throne. Then something you'd actually say: I think my brother's birthday is on the third Thursday of this month.

5. Record yourself (two minutes). Play it back. You'll hear things you can't hear while speaking.

For a native model, BBC Learning English has a short video on the TH sounds that walks through think, three, this, and then with a close-up of the mouth. Watching a mouth move is worth a lot more than reading about it.

For steps four and five, it helps to have something that answers back. Promova's AI Tutor lets you say words and sentences out loud and get feedback right away, so you're not guessing whether your TH landed. You can also try AI Role-Play to use those words in real situations — ordering something, making plans, introducing your family — where this, that, thanks, and three come up constantly. The whole Promova app is built around short sessions, which suits pronunciation work well: your mouth learns faster from many small reps than from one long push.

Final thoughts

TH feels impossible right up until the moment it doesn't. It's one tongue position and one on/off switch in your throat — that's genuinely all the mechanics you need. What takes time is making it automatic, and the only route there is saying the words out loud, badly at first, until they stop being hard.

Start with the words you actually use. The, this, that, think, thanks, three. Those six will cover most of your day. Add a few more each week, keep your hand on your throat when you're unsure, and remember that entire regions of English-speaking countries don't say TH the "correct" way either. Nobody is grading you. People just want to hear what you have to say.