AIBU to think my son's name isn't that hard to pronounce?

[SailorByTheSea]

Or is this an acceptable pronunciation!?

We live in London, so 'fear' is 1 syllable (this is relevant!)

My son is called Theodore... You know, 3 syllables, 'The-uh-door'?

All he gets is 'fear-door' please tell me that this isn't an acceptable pronunciation? It makes me regret his name massively

When we say they sound the same do we mean we know who is being mentioned, or that we genuinely do not hear a difference between TH and F?

Does his name get shortened to Ted?

Missed out reading a massive section but chipping in to say that it has for a long time been a thing for some kids in school to need to be taught the difference in producing the th/f/vsounds in speech. So difficult for some but genuinely physically impossible for only a few.

Once again, "correct" is the incorrect word to use! The word you're looking for is standard. The standard pronunciation of "th" in English is θ.

If all English accents pronounced "th" as "f" then that would be the standard, and the thread would be full of people saying it was "correct". Foreigners would learn that the consonant combination "th" in English spelling was pronounced "f". Foreigners learning Polish have to learn the pronunciation of the letter combinations sz, si, cz, ci, rz etc. Learning Irish you find out that bh is pronounced v and so on. In an alternative universe th willl be pronounced f and that will be standard. Do you see the difference between standard and correct?

RP is an accent and as such has changed over the years. I say the same thing on threads every time. Which accent is RP nowadays? The Queen's /Prince William's/ Jeremy Vine's/Matthew Wright's ?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fricative this link tells you about th as in thin and th as in there. v is the voiced version of f and therefore people who can't hear the difference between voiced th and v say vere rather than there.

Once again, "correct" is the incorrect word to use! The word you're looking for is standard. The standard pronunciation of "th" in English is θ. That's right and the standard pronunciation of th in there is [ð]

I find this kind of thing fascinating as my DS is currently having speech therapy for speech sounds disorder. I always wonder what the end result would be for him without the therapy, would he eventually be able to just practice the sounds as an older child, old enough to know and want to pronounce things correctly I mean. Or is it a case if you don't learn it early enough it's almost impossible to learn to say new sounds. There's plenty of adults who can't say their 'r' s properly, are people who think it's just laziness saying if these people just practiced a bit they would be able to correct it?
I understand your pain though OP, my niece has a name that is pronounced differently in a Liverpool accent and it winds me up!

That's right and the standard pronunciation of th in there is [ð] Haha you're probably right, I just did a quick sneaky google while in a boring meeting ;)

I dismissed some names because of my own family's accent!

It's a fact of life I'm afraid.

I wonder if 'ph' was originally pronounced differently to 'f'.

I'm glad someone else has mentioned that there's a difference between 'correct' and 'standard'.
Is there even a 'standard' pronunciation anymore anyway?
People definitely don't pronounce things today as they did a few generations ago.

Also, I think the people who can't hear the difference between 'th' and 'f' will probably reduce now that phonics is taught at school. I don't think that means that we'll hear less 'f's in everyday speck thought every indication is that it's spreading.
And that the Estuary English accent (mixture of cockney and RP) is slowly sliding becoming more 'cockney' that 'RP'.
And that the short/long a boarder is rising

It's fascinating stuff, I just don't understand what makes people so angry.
For such a tiny country with so many different accents and dialects, why would anyone want to lose that, and have us all speak with some identikit BBC accent?

"I dismissed some names because of my own family's accent!

Me too. Connie and Lily were both crossed off the list......

YABU go to France and your son's name will be pronounce tay-o-door. My son is called Etienne and I get all sorts of pronunciation, same with my French name. I'm not bothered. After 27 years in Britain I still can't pronounce some names properly (Ian for example).

I agree that it's very useful to learn the difference. When I was little, growing up in Sweden with an Irish mother, I couldn't understand why my English teacher was so adamant that I learn how to say this that these and those. Dis dat dese and dose I said, and to me I was saying the exact same thing, because wasn't it the words she wanted? It was much later that I copped on that she was going on about the sound. Since English is also an international language it's useful to be able to modify your accent to something more understandable to everyone, and you can't do that so easily if you don't understand what the differences are.

derxa
I know someone who sounds 'v' instead of 'th' and it drives me crazy because it's so obviously wrong. Is it something they can't help then?

Is it something they can't help then? They usually can't hear the difference between th and v. When I met DH he was the same and I taught him to discriminate sounds and produce them but I was a SALT. (Sorry if that sounds a bit arsey)

There's a really interesting thread at the minute about people's 'minds eye', how well people can visualise. Someone spoke about two red cars she was convinced we're different shades, but her DD saw absolutely no difference.
I reckon this must be some sort of aural equivalent.
So certain people can naturally differentiate sounds very well, mimic accents, tone, inflections etc, and others just can't hear the difference.
So the latter people may get a bit better with a lot of practice, but likely not by much, because if they had an 'ear for it' they wouldn't need the practice in the first place.

It is interesting, yes. I remember my German teacher saying that they don't have 'th' in German so don't learn to pronounce it, hence the 'z' sound. That I can understand but hadn't considered that someone with no hearing/speech problems could actually not hear differences I can...

But again, it's a distinctive Aussie accent.

There is more than one Australian accent....

3EyedRaven

About the ph-spelling of F:
english.stackexchange.com/questions/18586/ph-for-the-f-sound-is-old-english-responsible-for-this-swap

@3EyedRaven The 'minds eye' really fascinates me

I can understand why someone might pronounce three and free the same way

What I struggle with is a pp saying they couldn't understand how the two words could possibly be pronounced differently

So the question about whether people genuinely hear words differently, as well as pronouncing them differently, is really interesting

So, take this video that a pp shared upthread, for Free vs three

Are there people who hear this video and are genuinely unable to hear any difference between the two words when they're vocalised so clearly side by side so as to enunciate the difference? Even if they might pronounce the two words the same in their own accent

banana maybe when it's that clear, they can? But probably only by the lips?
(I'm making this up as I go along!)
Have you seen heard those aural illusions where there's a sound playing, and you can hear it as either baa baa or daa daa, (or whatever the sounds are) depending on which lip movement is on the video being shown. Maybe is something like that? So they genuinely can't hear the difference unless they're really paying attention? (As I said , I don't know, I'm just guessing)
It's all very interesting though!

this is the video for audio illusions.

Are there people who hear this video and are genuinely unable to hear any difference between the two words when they're vocalised so clearly side by side so as to enunciate the difference? Even if they might pronounce the two words the same in their own accent

This seems directed at foreigners, and in that case yes, they do not hear the difference. If a Polish person says cześć to you, odds are you'd struggle to hear the difference between the two "ch" sounds in that word, because English doesn't have that difference.

I read somewhere that since Japanese has no L sound, and the R sound is so similar, they do not hear the difference between L and R if they learn a language as adults, even if they can teach themselves to say it.

I'm no expert on this, but did raise a son with auditory processing difficulties so have learned a bit over the years. The way a person learns language does affect the way the pathways in the brain develop so by the time we are adults, some of those pathways are pretty set. And this true for everyone, not just those who have processing issues.

This seems directed at foreigners, and in that case yes, they do not hear the difference. If a Polish person says cześć to you, odds are you'd struggle to hear the difference between the two "ch" sounds in that word, because English doesn't have that difference.

Yes absolutely, I worded it very poorly. I meant English speakers

There have been PP on this thread where posters from SE London have said they couldn't understand how three and free could be pronounced differently. So it's interesting whether this extends from non native speakers to native speakers who've grown up with a particular accent

I'm curious whether I have any of these blockers as someone who grew up with my own regional accent - I'm sure there must be!