When did Think become Fink.

[WokenUpEarly]

Genuine question, taking out any speech issues, when did Think become Fink?
Throw become Frow?
Etc

@Hardbackwriter

Isn’t this the way people pronounce the words in London and the South East? It’s weird and very sloppy.

Where are you from? I was just wondering which bits of your natural accent I could describe as 'weird'.

It IS weird that so many people are unable to pronounce “th”. I can accept a few might have that issue but not in such large numbers. I think k it’s an affectation.

It IS weird that so many people are unable to pronounce “th”. I can accept a few might have that issue but not such large numbers. I think it’s an affectation.

@Janegrey333

It IS weird that so many people are unable to pronounce “th”. I can accept a few might have that issue but not such large numbers. I think it’s an affectation.

It's not weird at all if that is how you learned to speak.

I can (and do) pronounce 'th' but there are other sounds that I find difficult to say because they don't really exist in my accent. I can't hear any difference between certain sounds that people from elsewhere in the UK can hear.

@Janegrey333

It IS weird that so many people are unable to pronounce “th”. I can accept a few might have that issue but not such large numbers. I think it’s an affectation.

Can you pronounce xie xie in Mandarin? Westerners say 'che che' as in Che Guevara. It's not. Your tongue is in a different place in your mouth. Really easy for Chinese people. Almost impossible to hear, let alone pronounce, for Westerners.

Loch in Scots?

Tartaruga in Italian?

Llandudno?

Xhosa?

Brits are so arrogant.

It's aot easier to say the sounds of the language you grow up with. Lots of people who learn English as a second language struggle with the th sound, just as lots of English speakers struggle with the ll sound in Welsh and so on. I speak pretty much all the languages I have some command of with a slight Dorset accent. If you grow up with everyone pronouncing th as f, that's how you'll most naturally say it. It's only a problem if you can't understand and generally we do understand fink instead of think.

I have no problem at all with people whose first language is not English having difficulty with certain sounds - I speak a couple of other languages badly I know which sounds I struggle with. I don't have a problem with someone who has a speech impediment struggling with it. I also don't have a problem with people speaking a local dialect or with a regional accent. I have one.
But I will secretly judge you if you say fink. Not in the same way as I judge you if you say "bahth " and "grahss". Because those just mark you out as an unfortunate southerner. 😂

Bahth and grahss are also found in upper/middle class RP accents in the south east, while th-fronting is mainly confined to working class Estuary, Essex and Cockney accents. Is that the difference, do you think?

I suspect the reason so many people think th-fronting and other aspects of Estuary are "wrong" rather than part of a valid accent is because of its association with working class people, and many people are still hugely influenced by the concept of social class. I think it's particularly bad in the southeast because the area where people speak Estuary English is also the area associated with upper/middle class people speaking RP, which is still seen as the "prestige" English accent by a lot of people, even if they don't speak it themselves. So there is more of a sense of upper class and upper middle class people having the "good, standard, correct" accent for the area and the working class people being deemed to have the "bad, uneducated" accent in contrast.

DH can't say th, English not his parents' first language so they can't say it either so I don't think they ever identified it as a problem.

@PhilSwagielka

I didn’t know Scottish people said it. None of the ones I know do, they’re mainly Weegies or from Greenock, is it a regional thing?

I'm in Glasgow. I say "gotten" all the time.

My bilingual 5yo can't say it. She has two older bilingual brothers who can, so I know it will come. It is, as many have pointed out, an unusual sound that doesn't occur in her other language and she only hears it from me and Numberjacks so little surprise really.

Yes, IVflytrap, I think this is all about class. I notice a couple of people upthread talking about people being 'well-spoken' and 'speaking nicely'. Which tends to mean RP, because it has been defined as the prestige accent (or indeed as not even an accent at all, but a standard, 'neutral' baseline) and UK (particularly English) society is riddled with class deference and a desire to define a 'lower' group and set oneself apart from it. Language usage/accent snobbery is an effective way of othering - telling people they are wrong for a personal characteristic that they can't change without giving up part of their identity - which can hide behind alleged 'pedantry' and a 'care for standards'. The sooner it is regarded as akin to recism, the better.

*racism

I don't have a problem with someone who has a speech impediment struggling with it. That's a terribly old fashioned term which is not used by SALTs. It means nothing.

@bellinisurge

I have no problem at all with people whose first language is not English having difficulty with certain sounds - I speak a couple of other languages badly I know which sounds I struggle with. I don't have a problem with someone who has a speech impediment struggling with it. I also don't have a problem with people speaking a local dialect or with a regional accent. I have one. But I will secretly judge you if you say fink. Not in the same way as I judge you if you say "bahth " and "grahss". Because those just mark you out as an unfortunate southerner. 😂

Goes without saying. 😉

Off topic but I pronounce the i in fish as somewhere between i and e. Specific to my area and people from other regions probably wouldn't be able to hear the difference.

It’s a lazy habit that children can quite easily be trained out of. You just have to threaten them with speech therapy! I got my son out of doing it in a matter of weeks.

To practice, you get them to pull their bottom lip right down, well away from the teeth. Then say “thank you” repeatedly. EVERYONE with teeth and a tongue can do it.

@TheNewLook

It’s a lazy habit that children can quite easily be trained out of. You just have to threaten them with speech therapy! I got my son out of doing it in a matter of weeks.

To practice, you get them to pull their bottom lip right down, well away from the teeth. Then say “thank you” repeatedly. EVERYONE with teeth and a tongue can do it.

@bellinisurge

Not sure what region you are referring to. Fucking ignorance is pretty universal

Well your post is pretty fucking ignorant. Google "Th-fronting" which is a recognised part of Estuary English.

@TheNewLook

It’s a lazy habit that children can quite easily be trained out of. You just have to threaten them with speech therapy! I got my son out of doing it in a matter of weeks.

To practice, you get them to pull their bottom lip right down, well away from the teeth. Then say “thank you” repeatedly. EVERYONE with teeth and a tongue can do it.

I suspect that having anything to do with you will be a habit that he'll easily get out of as an adult, too...

I am a Dance Mum. My dd is on the competition circuit and we regularly watch candidates in the Song and Dance category. The ones who sing "ff" instead of "th" never win. It sounds bloody awful.

It is also problematic when people are unable to distinguish between both sounds: so the verb 'slither' and the noun 'sliver' meld into one. How unfortunate.

It IS weird that so many people are unable to pronounce “th”. I can accept a few might have that issue but not in such large numbers. I think it’s an affectation

Language and speech develops in the early years. If you learn an accent which doesn’t contain “th” as a sound, it may be you lose the ability to hear it, and don’t develop the muscles to say it.

Much like those who learn to speak a second language later on can never get the accents or certain sounds completely right.

Dh is a S Londoner. He genuinely cannot tell the difference between “th” and “f”. I have tried to teach him how to say th as @belinda789 points out, but again he cannot do it. If he really concentrates he can produce a hybrid “thf” sound, but his ear-brain-mouth pathway automatically uses “f”.

Writing he manages fine as he knows which words he needs. But to him “th” and “f” are the same phonetic sound.

It baffles me when people (excluding non native English speakers) say they can’t pronounce th at the start of a word yet when it’s at the end, such as b-a-th, it doesn’t seem to cause such problems.

Definitely say 'fink' in London - especially if you have a cockney accent.

It does cause a problem

don’t develop the muscles to say it. Do you mean the muscle memory?

don’t develop the muscles to say it.Do you mean the muscle memory?

I'd assume actual muscles in your mouth and tongue - which is probably partly why speaking foreign languages can be so tiring, as you have to make different sounds.