"An English tongue-twister" with Audio example

Question

Inspired by the recent mentions of seseo, non-seseo and ceceo, I remembered that many native English speakers do not pronounce the English sound 'th' (as in think, thirst etc, entirely correctly.

For example, we have people from parts of London and Essex (probably many others too) pronouncing it as 'f':

giving us fink and first

and some people from Ireland pronouncing it as simply 't' giving us:

tink and tirst (this is very often the main way you would hear an English person attempting to imitate an Irish accent, it's not pc of course, but I'm sure we get our fair share of humorous imitations too!)

I find that people learning English as a second language, if they have any difficulty, tend to give it more of an 's' sound, fitting nicely with seseo:

sink and sirst

I don't know if it will help, but I've made up my own tongue-twister and recorded myself saying it, to the best of my ability!! I hope it's helpful or at least interesting to somebody.

Three hundred and thirty-three thousand thrifty spinsters threaded thousands of thin needles with three thousandths of the thrilling threads.

Audio of my attempt

Answer 1

Funny! Thanks! You're right, and I never realized how differently we speak....I have a really hard time saying it like you, but I still speak English Thanks for your thoughts!

• I had to look up Spokane, what an interesting place-name! Thanks for commenting. :) - galsally Jan 11, 2011