Bloody embarrassed... how do you all pronounce 'thus' ?

[JellyTots2009]

I'm totally embarrassed just because this happened in front of my partners dad.

I am currently writing up a college assignment and used the word 'thus' in a sentence. Now, not using this word a lot I asked my partner who was standing with his dad if this sentence made sense.
When I pronounced thus all I got was 'it's thus! Thus!' from both of them. Obviously writing it down you don't know how it's said.

I pronounce it 'th-us' like 'fuss' but using 'th' they said it is 'the-us' obviously said as one word and not with a hyphen in.

I know I'm 100% wrong but has anyone else pronounced it my way making my embarrassment less?

All the words with th at the beginning sound the same to me, I think this soft and hard business must only apply to certain regional accents.

SinkGirl - I'd say the OP pronounces This with the same Th sound as she's pronouncing Thus, so that's no going to help her.

It's where you position your tongue/teeth in relation to each other that comes out with different sounds for TH.

I definitely stick the tip of my tongue (pronounced tong) between my teeth for both THs.

For those of you who are saying it all sounds the same no matter what word it is, you're not getting the difference.

Try to pronounce Thus with your tongue touching the bottom of your top teeth. That's one sound.

Now Try to pronounce Thus with tongue not involved but top teeth touching bottom lip. That's another sound. To me this sound comes across like a F sound.

I've heard both variations in England.

I definitely wasn't saying 'f' when saying 'thus' , so like saying fuss but with 'th'

I've learned today it's pronounced with a hard 'th' and it's now seared into my brain

Not sure what hard and soft means.

Can someone describe the difference by explaining where teeth/tongue are in relation to each other?

I hate the word thus... could you have used ‘therefore’ instead?

Rhymes with "fuss", and the "th" at the beginning is voice as in "the", not unvoiced as in "thing".

And now - run like the wind! (wined? )

Or maybe ‘consequently’ or if you’re feeling fancy ‘ergo’.
Really don’t like thus, can you tell?

Hard th is this, that, them, there

Soft th is think, thought, thumb

Flying - in the voiced/hard "th" the tongue is pressed against the top front teeth to prevent air escape - sometimes may be actually between the teeth, pressed against the top ones.

In the unvoiced/soft "th" the tongue is in the same place but lightly - allows an escape of air and reduces the sound.

Sorry @Cinnebar I thought this was you -

*'Th' in 'think' should just sound like a soft hissing sound, whereas the hard 'th' actually has a vocalisation - so you could sing it with any pitch you wanted. You can't sing a note for a soft 'th'.

A bit like saying 'v' as in 'version' vs 'f' as in 'fish'*

But it was @Kinky. Apparently you can't sing a note for a soft th...but I think I can????

@SchadenfreudePersonified
Thanks. I get it now. Difficult sounds for me to pronounce though as we don't really use that sound (neither soft nor hard) in Ireland.

Am I the only person who just can't understand the worng pronunciation - can anyone upload it. I can't think of any wnrog way to say it.

Irish people will pronounce think or thought like a T sound. So Tink or Tought.
However, the, there, those, them would be De, Dere, Dose, Dem.

Interesting convo.

@caughtinanet

Not the only one. I don't know how many times and how many ways I've been pronouncing Thus this afternoon lol. It will always be duss to me though

Th pronounced as is the not thing

Nah tis all bollocks.

I feel like yer woman in My Fair Lady

tongue and teeth are in the same place for both, but the difference is just whether the voice box is vibrating. Voiced - the start of the, they, that, though, thus. Unvoiced - the start of thing, think, this, three, etc.

If you can't feel the difference by putting a hand on the throat where the vocal cords are, then another way to try is to block your ears with your fingers. The voiced version will buzz more than the unvoiced.

Note also that when you say the vowel, it will be voiced, so you will feel the vibrations or hear the buzz at that point regardless - so it's only when you are saying the TH part of it that you should look for the difference.

If you extend the TH for a bit of time and don't say the rest of the word, you might be able to feel it better.

The difference in voicing is the same for many pairs of phonemes in English. Mostly we have different letters/combinations of letters for these, but TH is one that we spell the same, even though they are as different in sound as s/z; f/v; sh/zh; b/p; k/g; and all the other pairs. Some languages do have different symbols for the voiced and unvoiced TH sounds as well, which makes it easier to describe them.

f/v are a different pair of letters that have that same difference in voicing. Also, they are made in a very similar way in the mouth as the two TH sounds. The difference is where the tongue and teeth are. For f/v, the teeth are touching the bottom lip; for the TH sounds, the tongue is slightly between the teeth.

People who mix up those sounds are likely to mix up the f and the unvoiced th, because they are both unvoiced. So they say free instead of three, or fin instead of thin. (Or vice versa, occasionally).

When they substitute v for th, it tends to be for the voiced Th, because v is also voiced. So you get 'muvver' for 'mother', or 'vat' for 'that'.

Thus is pronounced with the voiced TH, like there and then, and that is probably what they were (rudely) correcting.

Sometimes whether a 'th' is voiced or unvoiced depends on accent and dialect. I know places were the 'th' at the end of 'with' is unvoiced.

I am thoroughly confused!

Do you mean you say "th-is" with the "th" sounding like the beginning of "thing" or "thought"? Because yes, that's wrong.

It's a "th" sound like you'd say in "the" or "this".

So I think I'm with your DP on this one.

@BlueberriesAndCream

Thanks for explanation. To me, it's not really something that can be learned later in life, which is why most Irish people don't lose their accents when they move to England. It's simply unnatural to us.

Are you a Speech & Language therapist? Or one of those people who teach actors how to speak using different accents?

If the latter, could you please work a little longer on the ones trying to do an Irish accent!

Aha - I just RTFT and saw this had been clarified.

Just say it like "this" but with an U instead of an I.

E.g's of things I'll never be able to say (except trying very hard)

Alright mate?

English person: Awrye may? Emphasis on 'may'

Me: 'Alrite mate? Emphasis on 'rite'

Language is a funny thing and accents are interesting too. E.g. I was studying a foreign language with a lot of Japanese people in the class. They couldn't hear the difference between 'L' and 'R' sometimes. Apparently it's a thing! Not sure why. Maybe they don't have one or the other sounds in Japanese.