Speech Tips
Impress Your Friends and The Best Reason to Master a Perfect “Th”
Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020
This is Blog #192: Impress Your Friends and The Best Reason To Master a Perfect “Th”
In the preceding Blog #191 on Friday, Dec. 11, 2020 I listed the 100 most frequently written words in English from the Oxford English Corpus (OEC) from 2013 from counting from 2 billion words from texts and similar to the Brown Corpus 1967.
So what does a list like that tell you? For one, it answers the question– How important is it to pronunce the “th” accurately?
Get this—the most frequently written word and Number 1 in 2 billion words in English texts is “the”.
Here are the nine (9) words with “th” in the top 100 words in English with the numbered rank:
1. the
8. that
15. with (American English, “th” has no voice)
21. this
26. they
38. there
39. their
79. think
96. these
Count them – nine (9) or about one tenth of the 100 most frequently written words in English have a “th”. Seven (7) of those nine (9) have a “th” with a voice.
Not only that, seven (7) of the nine words with a “th” are ranked for children’s reading books as pre-primer, primer and grade 2. So, when children in North America and Great Britain are learning to read, they are reading these words frequently. Just so you know, children learning to read are speaking the words aloud.
Also, a super frequently asked question from people who are speaking English as a second or other language (ESL /ESOL) is this:
How do you know whether the “th” has a voice or no voice?
A BIG part of the answer is this: the little words with “th” and which you see frequently are mostly “th” with a voice: the, that, this, they, there, their, and these.
There is more. When children are learning to read English in school, their teachers use the strategy of boot-strapping. An example of a teacher using boot-strapping is this: The teacher says to the student: “You already recognize “the” and can say that word accurately. Every time you see these next “th” words which begin with “th”, do or pronounce the same sound. So, do the same “th” pronunciation as you do for “th” for these words: “that”, “this”, “they”,“there”, “their”, “these”.
Also, teachers tell children, “You know the word “with”. This “th” is pronounced only with air and has no voice. So you pronounce the same “th” sound you use for “with” for “think”. And “thank”. And “through” and “throw.”
The take home message for this blog is this: If you wonder whether it is worth the effort and work to fully master the “th” sound with a voice and with no voice– do it. The number of times you will speak words with the English “th” is downright huge.
Below is a brief description of pronouncing “th”:
Positioning of the tongue is the critical and super important feature of “th”. Push your tongue forward. Minimum is to push your tongue forward so that it rests between your top front teeth and your bottom front teeth.
Maximum—there is no maximum for work-out practice. Do work-out practice for home practice. Push the tongue out over your lower lip and make the tip of your tongue go down and not up. This will make the muscles strong that push the tongue forward and down and are slow-twitch muscles.
Make the “th” sound slowly and loudly. When the “th” has a voice, make the sound from your throat loudly and it is like a hum. When the “th” has no voice, be especially sure to use a lot of energy to push a lot of air quickly out of your mouth.
Seeing pronunciation of “th” is often more helpful than reading a written description. In YouTube.com/ClearTalkMastery has several Accent Reduction Tips for “th”:
These are ClearTalkMastery Accent Reduction Tip #63, #46, and # 9 . All of these Accent Reduction Tips are for “th”, both with no voice and with a voice.
#63 is no voice “th”, “authentic”
#46 voiced “th” “that”
#9 no voice th “through”, “throw” and voiced “th” though
Do you want a quick, easy way to get lots of practice of the “th”—- say those 9 words 3 to 10 times each day for 21 days. Perfectly. Work-out practice to make your tongue muscles strong. The muscles that push the tongue forward and the tip down. Slow twitch muscles.
Remember, it is not practice makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect.
Happy practicing perfect!
100 Most Common English Words – And What To Do With Them -Yay!
BLOG #191 Friday, Dec. 11, 2020 100 Most Common English Words– And What to Do With Them- Yay
In this blog you will find a list of the 100 Most Common English words. Studies that estimate and rank these look at written texts. This list comes from the Oxford English Corpus (OEC) from 2 billion words ranging from literary works, novels, academic journals, newspapers, journals, blogs, chat logs, emails and even Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates 2013. Another corpus which found similar results is from 1967 and is called the Brown Corpus, from Brown University, USA. Their findings were similar.
Yay for 100 most frequently written English words. But there’s more reason for you to read through these words both silently and aloud. (More later about the tip to read this list aloud. And HOW to do that for best short term and long term pronunciation learning results.) According to the Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, the first 25 words in the OEC account for about one-third of all printed material in English. AND according to a study cited by Robert McCrum in The Story of English, all of these hundred words are of Anglo-Saxon origin, except for “people”, which ultimately came from the Latin “populus” and “because” which developed from Latin “causa.”
- the
- be (all forms, is, was)
- to
- of
- and
- a
- in
- that
- have
- I
- it
- for
- not
- on
- with
- he
- as
- you
- do
- at
- this
- but
- his
- by
- from
- they
- we
- say
- her
- she
- or
- an
- will
- my
- one
- all
- would
- there
- their
- what
- so
- up
- out
- if
- about
- who
- get
- which
- go
- me
- when
- make
- can
- like
- time
- no
- just
- him
- know
- take
- people
- into
- year
- your
- good
- some
- could
- them
- see
- other
- than
- then
- now
- look
- only
- come
- its
- over
- think
- also
- back
- after
- use
- two
- how
- our
- work
- first
- well
- way
- even
- new
- want
- because
- any
- these
- give
- day
- most 100. us
Congratulations, you got all the way to the bottom of this list of the 100 most frequently written words, Now—do consider reading this list of words aloud for practice in making your English speech more understandable to everybody and , if you want it– sound more like native-born North Americans.
Here’s an important hint. Based on our –Clear Talk Mastery’s– experience with one-on-one coaching of student-learners who are taking the format Gold, Gold Plus or Platinum, the student-learners who used work-out mode practice for their homework/ direct practice did the best. Hands down.
Here’s a quck description of work-out mode practice—For fastest and long lasting results, including growing speech muscles, when you practice some or all of these words do this:
- Pronounce each sound carefully and accurately
- Consciously make your speech muscles stiff and hard. Lips, tongue, even jaw muscles.
- Consciously exaggerate the movement of your muscles—make slow muscles go at least double slow and fast muscles at least double fast. Thus slow sounds like “th” make these very very slow. And exaggerate the accuracy or placement of muscles. For example, for the “th” sound, push your tongue outside of your mouth and make the tip of your tongue go down toward your chin. That will make that muscle grow in strength because you have loaded it.
- Importantly, make the muscles attached to the vocal folds stiffer and harder than you typically do. You will know you have succeeded because the speech sound is louder. -30-
Nine Non-obvious ways to have deeper conversations – Not the David Brooks NY tips
Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations for Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020 Blog#190
This is NOT the David Brooks op-ed NY Times Tips.
I admire the writings of David Brooks—both his style and his content. But since I am not subscribing to the NY Times, I can’t read what he says.
BUT I think the title and content is great. So here is my version—
NINE Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations
- In pandemic times especially, you’ve got to be prepared with direct and to the point ideas or opinions. Everyone knows to limit 1) spread of respiratory droplets from mouth talking. 2) Even on Zoom, Skype, Telephone, Teams, Facetime— no one has time.
- So do this –Do the 3 P’s—Preparation, Preparation, Preparation
- Preparation- Figure out what topics are most important to you. Here’s one idea. People working in hospices have given out this advice of what to say when your death is imminent: “I’m going to miss you.” “I’m sorry.” “I forgive you.” “I love you.” Whew those are certainly super deep. Here are similar— “I have missed you.” “I felt bad about…” “I felt bad about xxx but I understand. “ “I like you.” “I enjoy you.”
- I would add to those four hospice statements, this one–—“Take care of yourself.” Relatedly, in a daily life conversation, you could say: “What happened last week or what did you do last week that was good, or happy…. For example, what was happy or good even really little—like you had a cup of coffee in the morning.”
- Consider opening a conversation with: “How did the last week go for you?” and if you want to follow-up “Do you feel like telling me more?” If you get the body language or words that the other person does not want to say, just flow into changing the subject.
- Open conversations with an observation and not a question. Observation just means a statement. You could make it something you both have in common. The weather works. The place, season, how you know the hostess/host. Or comment on something worn at that time by the other person. Ideally the “observation” should be 60 seconds and no more than 2 or 3 minutes, maximum.
- Then if the other person does not respond with talking, then ask a question. You already know this— some people do not volunteer information. But if you ask them a question, they feel good about answering.
- One of my all- time favorite questions which works every time is “What do you think of that?”
- Use the other person’s response to extend out the conversation or perhaps take the conversation a bit deeper. Easy is to stick to open ended questions which cannot be answered with “yes” or “no” word. Who, what, when, where, why, how.
Copyright 2020 Clear Talk Mastery, Inc.
