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#Post#: 11522--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE when should it be pronounced THEE and not THUH
By: Alharacas Date: January 19, 2019, 4:28 am
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[quote author=Sofia link=topic=779.msg11520#msg11520
date=1547890105]
Further question: is it wrong to say thuh onion, thuh elevator?
[/quote]
No, it isn't. However, you'd have to introduce a glottal stop*
between the article and the vowel, otherwise you'd end up saying
"thonion" and "thelevator", and that, I think, really would
hinder understanding.
*a glottal stop is that kind of slight gagging (where your
throat closes up for a moment) which occurs at the beginning of
ejecting a very short (surprised?) "uh", or try to pronounce an
exaggerated "g"
This is from the Oxford dictionaries:
HTML https://forum.oxforddictionaries.com/en/discussion/43/pronunciation-of-the-definite-article-the
Note how he says "it's not impossible", implying it's not really
common.
#Post#: 11532--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE when should it be pronounced THEE and not THUH
By: NealC Date: January 19, 2019, 11:09 am
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I really did sort of glaze over in school when the teacher would
bring up a "rule" in English. In English every spelling and
grammar rule has so many exceptions that I felt it useless to
memorize the rules.
Alharacas
"Be careful what you wish for. This may be exactly what you're
going to get once you've retired to that Italian village of your
dreams."
Thanks ever so much for deflating my romantic dreams of an
idyllic Italian retirement. Why can't you be a stereotypical
German and remain reticent?
@Sofia
The children wont be mean to me will they?
No matter. I will just do the same thing I did when the kids
made fun of me in grammar school. Sell them candy at a
discount.
#Post#: 11533--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE when should it be pronounced THEE and not THUH
By: NealC Date: January 19, 2019, 11:13 am
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And what Alharacas said does make sense, you either change the
pronunciation, make a glottal stop, or run the words together.
I have heard all three.
Or you can get all New York in your accent and change "th" to a
D sound. Dat werks too
#Post#: 11537--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE when should it be pronounced THEE and not THUH
By: SHL Date: January 19, 2019, 3:08 pm
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@Sofia
You can say „thuh elevator“ or „thuh onion“ and I`m sure many
people do, but you would have to use the glottal stop to avoid
running the words together. I`ve frankly never heard anyone run
the words together without the stop. I doubt anyone even knows
how many people say „thee onion/elevator“ vs „thuh
onion/elevator“ and I`m quite sure few Americans even know or
hear the difference, it´s that subtle.
This is one of those things native speakers are never taught
(except for maybe in speech therapy class). Native speakers are
not taught pronunciation. In fact, they know it before they even
get to school. Only when they get to school and speech
impediments are noticed (like a lisp) are they taught to
overcome it.
I have no idea when I say „thee onion“ vs. „thuh onion“ and in
my entire life have never even thought about it until now. I
doubt it`s a hard and fast rule of any sort.
@Neal
If you had the lisp as a little kid, which is common, then you
would have, and should have, been taken aside and given speech
therapy classes for that. I don`t know what the percentage is of
children with this problem is, but it`s certainly not uncommon.
I never had any speech impediments as a child, but I know of a
few kids who did. My cousin, who was my age, had a speech
problem of some kind (I`ve forgotten exactly now what it was),
and I think it was probably the lisp as you mentioned, but after
speech therapy in school, he got over it too. I wonder if that´s
the only sound the few kids with speech impediments have in
English, the lisp. With Castellon Spanish or Icelandic, since at
least Icelandic has the TH sound in just about every word and
sometimes it appears multiple times in one word, I have to
wonder if their children have this same problem.
The only thing I recall is my mom constantly correcting my
younger sister to not say „It happened on accident“ and instead
to say, „it happened BY accident.“ I assume my sister just
picked the „on accident“ up off the street. A lot to do over one
lousy preposition.
I never had pronunciation or language problems of any kind, for
some reason, at school. Languages just came to me easily (even
the dreaded high school Spanish).
So as to English grammar, sure it was taught it and the „rules“
were quickly forgotten once the class was over. I was never
taught pronunciation. Like Noam Chomsky says, „If someone has to
teach you the grammar of your own language, the odds are pretty
good that what you are being taught is false. Otherwise you
wouldn`t have to be taught it. No one teaches you your own
language, any more than they teach you how to see. It´s
something that just grows in your head....children already speak
their own language before they even get to school.“
#Post#: 11541--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE when should it be pronounced THEE and not THUH
By: Aliph Date: January 19, 2019, 4:28 pm
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[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=779.msg11522#msg11522
date=1547893737]
*a glottal stop is that kind of slight gagging (where your
throat closes up for a moment) which occurs at the beginning of
ejecting a very short (surprised?) "uh", or try to pronounce an
exaggerated "g"
[/quote]
Thank you Alharacas for the substantial information!
By the way, I never heard about glottal stops until I started
learning Arabic. I found out they exist in all the languages but
in Arabic they are written.
HTML https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamza
How does that work in Farsi? Do they also have the hamza sign ?
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