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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think i don't have a speech impediment

285 replies

McColonel · 20/12/2015 23:53

To me, F and TH are pronounced exactly the same. E.g. three and free - I say them in exactly the same way.

My wife says I can't pronounce th, and I always pronounce an F when it should be TH.

Does anyone agree with me, that they are pronounced the same? Or is she right, and I can't speak properly? My brother agrees with me.

OP posts:
ineedamoreadultieradult · 21/12/2015 18:00

I'm partially deaf and mostly can't hear the difference so I make sure to do the to tongue between the teeth thing for th sounds to make sure they sound right. I didn't realise how obviously I did it until DS1 grew up doing it as well.

derxa · 21/12/2015 18:01

The these there them -> th is voiced
three think -> th is voiceless

lorelei9 · 21/12/2015 18:08

I apologise if this is a foolish question
If a person has trouble with th and I think the OP mentioned the action of tongue to teeth, how would that person say "the" or "that" or "then" etc?

I think free instead of three is fairly well known but I've always thought it was just how the person speaks, not that they couldn't say th.

Branleuse · 21/12/2015 18:23

im surprised you cant tell the difference if youve lived in england your whole life.
I can be pretty lazy when I speak depending who im speaking to, and do sometimes use F and TH interchangeably, but am more than capable of hearing the difference or using the TH sound.

I know if youre speaking another language there can be certain sounds that are incredibly difficult to pick out or pronounce if youre not brought up with it, but im really surprised someone from Oxfordshire would have this problem with such a normal part of English speech.

Do you have a problem with your hearing?

DN4GeekinDerby · 21/12/2015 19:23

As CastaDiva said, it's called th fronting - replacing either of the th sounds usually with other fricatives like f or v. If it doesn't impede your ability to communicate then I wouldn't consider it to be a speech impediment so I think YANBU. Both th sounds came so late to English comparatively that there are several variant ways of dealing with them. None of the variants really take more effort or are better than the others, /θ/ and /ð/ just became the most common and then the standard for Standard English.

The th sounds are among the last to develop firmly in English both historically and how our speech develops as individuals. Most under the age of 8 use th-fronting naturally, and is part of many dialects in the UK and elsewhere. When my eldest was in speech therapy my having a foreign [Midwestern US which does not have th-fronting] accent was brought up - my partner's th-fronting wasn't and while testing to see which sounds he about differentiate between th sounds vs others was never brought up. Apparently it's so common and does so little to interfere with speech that they don't test for it unless specifically asked -- and Derby isn't a major th-fronting area. Many who th-front will not be noticeable to others because the difference compared to the rest of speech is pretty small.

My partner who was raised in Northumberland th-fronts, he literally cannot hear a difference between what he say and what I say. No one around us really notices - he's literally worked with people for years without them picking it up until he made a joke about it. Our kids all will th-front unless it is point it out to them and even then it is often a struggle for them to say the sounds as standard. None of their teachers or club leaders or friend's parents or doctors -- including audiologists have ever commented on it or seen it as an issue when we've mentioned it. Barring slight problems with spelling it really hasn't been any barrier let alone an impediment. is very common and has nothing whatsoever to do with being lazy. I find the idea than other variants are lazy is well lazy thinking and ignores a lot of the history and variety of English. Also, having watched my 8 year old crying spending literally hours trying to master 'standard' th sounds with a hand mirror because of one rude snobby family member, I find that whole mindset rather hurtful.

hereiamagain22 · 21/12/2015 19:32

I agree it's partly a class thing.

I grew up in Essex until I moved to Kent in my 30s. Lots of people round here do this. I don't - my parents would have killed me (and I grew up in a council house) as it's the rougher end of the scale when it comes to Estuary English. I have a lot of the local accent, but not that particular bit of it. And my child wasn't allowed to do it either. DP does it all the time and I do think it makes him sound a bit thick to be honest with you, not that I'd ever tell him that.

It does cause misunderstandings. this weekend I misunderstood someone because I'm so used to hearing it I do an auto-correct in my head to 'th'. Someone was trying to tell me about free something or other, and I thought they were telling me about three somethings. Took a couple of minutes to sort out. So they were saying it correctly, but because it's a norm here to say f for th, I assumed she meant something completely different.

finetonive · 21/12/2015 19:40

It's sounds like lazy speech. You probably weren't taught properly as a child, so to you it is the norm.
Do you also say could of instead of could have?

finetonive · 21/12/2015 19:42

I agree it's partly a class thing.

True.

finetonive · 21/12/2015 19:50

Maybe those who find it physically impossible to say "th" either have an overbite (like BIL) or a very short tongue?

I have also noticed that those who struggle to pronounce the thr sounds very often have very big, over large mouths.

derxa · 21/12/2015 20:05

I have also noticed that those who struggle to pronounce the thr sounds very often have very big, over large mouths. Hmm

finetonive · 21/12/2015 20:07

My cousin has an overbite and a big mouth. He can't pronounce thr sounds.

finetonive · 21/12/2015 20:09

So I'm not sure what your point is, derxa?

fresta · 21/12/2015 20:09

Grin at over large mouths!

lokijet · 21/12/2015 20:11

my son has a speech disorder (lots of issues about front and back of mouth sounds) and we have been working on this

F - lower lip is bitten by upper teeth while exhaling

Th - tongue protrudes between teeth and slightly down while exhaling

produces slightly different sounds

hope this helps

finetonive · 21/12/2015 20:12

Or as somebody said, they have too short tongues?

It could be a physical reason for some people.
Uncorrected (before braces) teeth can cause some impediments, such as lisping, so why can't not being able to pronounce 'thr' properly also have a physical cause, in some instances?

derxa · 21/12/2015 20:12

My point is that I'm an ex SALT (17 years in practice) and I've never heard of such a thing.

finetonive · 21/12/2015 20:15

Point taken.
So in your opinion, what do you think is causing people to pronounce it incorrectly?

Is it laziness, physical, or accent related?
Or a combination of all three?

museumum · 21/12/2015 20:17

There is an impediment where people can't say th. Interestingly in parts of Scotland people with that impediment would more likely say something a bit like shree for three because replacing th with f just isn't done in the Scottish accent.

lorelei9 · 21/12/2015 20:17

Again, still don't follow, sorry, if someone's tongue is too short, how do they say "the"?

finetonive · 21/12/2015 20:17

If a person has trouble with th and I think the OP mentioned the action of tongue to teeth, how would that person say "the" or "that" or "then" etc?

They will use d instead.

''It's in da house''
Dat instead of that.

Den instead of then sounds a bit childish.

IguanaTail · 21/12/2015 20:21

It's not a speech impediment and you are not thick or lazy. It's just the pronunciation you have learned growing up. You can definitely tell the difference between them because you don't write them incorrectly at all.

I have taught plenty of kids who genuinely don't know the difference. Sometimes they write it how they think it sounds "he didn't bovver" and sometimes they are so aware of it that they write words with a "th" where there isn't ones. "crathts" "wathle" etc.

I tried to get a boy of about 16 to say "brother" rather than "brovver" - he couldn't do it. It was no speech impediment it was just how he spoke. Had his family all used "th" sounds he would have been able to as well.

derxa · 21/12/2015 20:22

I don't think it's ever laziness. In some areas it is accent. It can be physical as in a motor problem e.g. dyspraxia It can be due to poor auditory discrimination, developmental delay... So many different reasons. It's all individual though.
However people manage to function OK. Alex Salmond for instance.

Original poster
McColonel · 21/12/2015 20:24

Sorry, I've been busy all day and only just seen all these replies!

There's a lot to respond to but I'll try to answer most of the questions.

I'm not uneducated. I've got a master's degree in mechanical engineering and I am the director of an engineering consultancy working in a highly specialised industry. However, I'm genuinely interested to hear that I may have been perceived as being thick throughout my entire life (I'm mid-30s now).

When it's pointed out to me and demonstrated clearly, I can hear the difference between f and th, but until my wife brought it up I'd never ever noticed it in everyday speech. As I said before in the thread, if i make a conscious effort to pronounce th properly I can do, but it's awkward and sounds exaggerated, and doesn't flow with the rest of my speech.

I've got to (roughly) where I want to be in life with my speech as it is, and I don't intend to bother trying to correct it now. You could say that's lazy, but I disagree. I would say lazy would be wanting to do something about it but not having the motivation to actually do so. I don't actually want to bother doing anything about it.

However, I take on board the comments about my daughter growing up with an aspect of her speech, learnt from me, that may suggest to other people that she's thick. It's something I will keep an eye on, but I do wonder if it's only a certain type of person that would judge someone's intelligence based on their pronunciation of "three". Nonetheless, there clearly are plenty of those people around! I get really annoyed when people say things like "should of" instead of "should have", "try and" instead of "try to", and confusing their/there/they're etc, but I don't consider mispronouncing "th" to be in the same category. It's a physiological thing relating to hearing and speech development, and not indicative of a lack of intelligence or education.

I do have bad hearing. In everyday life i often can't hear things that other people can hear. I've been tested at the doctors and have been told I don't have a hearing problem though. I havent bothered getting a second opinion.

I'm seeing my mum over xmas and will ask her about this issue.

When I posted it I wasn't sure I'd get any replies - I had no idea how strong some people's views are about it!

OP posts:
derxa · 21/12/2015 20:24

There is an impediment where people can't say th. Interestingly in parts of Scotland people with that impediment would more likely say something a bit like shree for three I've never heard of this.

derxa · 21/12/2015 20:28

but it's awkward and sounds exaggerated, and doesn't flow with the rest of my speech. That's because you're trying to change a muscle memory.
OP most people won't have noticed and the rest will have heard a slight difference.