Exercise 6.6
Adapted from: Duberman, (2016)
Tongue twisters are a good way to practise /th/ sounds too. Practise saying the tongue twisters below until you can say them flawlessly, paying special attention to the difference between both forms of /th/ you have learned about. Once you think you are ready, challenge a classmate for a ‘tongue twister battle’. Take turns in saying a tongue twister and give each other points for each phrase you manage to say without errors in /th/. If you do make an error, you lose a point.
Let’s find out who of you is the true ‘tongue twister champion.’
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Those three fathers think that anything is threatening the treat.
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Thank you for thinking that Thursday was my birthday! I certainly thought I was thirty!
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Three thousand three hundred and thirty three thirsty dirty thieves threw the cloth through the threatening trees.
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Thank you for that fifth cup of broth.
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They were tired but thought that anything was better than nothing.
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The things that he brought showed that the moth was not the father.
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Anything you throw will be three times thanked.
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I thought a thought, but the thought I thought wasn't the thought I thought I thought.
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Exercise 6.7
Adapted from: Smakman, (2014)
Text from: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) by J.K. Rowling. (Bloomsbury Publishing, London).
Prepare the text below well, choosing correctly and clearly between ‘voiced’ and ‘voiceless’ /th/ for the highlighted sounds. If you think it helps, copy the text into your Pronunciation Portfolio and highlight the different forms of /th/ in blue for 'voiceless' /th/ and red for 'voiced / th/.
Record yourself and send your recording to your teacher for feedback on how well you have differentiated between both forms of /th/.
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense. Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large moustache. Mrs Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences spying on the neighbours.
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The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere. The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursley’s sister, but they hadn't met for several years. In fact, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbours would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.
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