The most important CONSONANT in English

[@noelleggett5368]

There is a famous story about Marlene Dietrich and her ‘battle’ with English ‘th’. When filming her breakout movie, Blue Angel, in 1930. Dietrich was playing a cabaret singer, and had trouble with lyric with a song that she had to sing in the movie. She just could not get her mouth around the ‘ths’ combination in the line; “Like moths around a flame”. After several failed takes, the director, Josef von Sternberg, solved the problem by having an extra in the movie call out for a waiter at the moment she sang the word ‘moths’, obscuring her voice for a spit second. ‘Blue Angel’ became a classic of European cinema, and the song, ‘Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It)’ became a worldwide hit, and Marlene Dietrich’s signature tune. The poor woman had to wrestle with that English consonant combination for the rest of her life.

[@lisaschuster686]

A 60-year L1: “Clothes” are “cloze” - end of story.

[@Nezumi--]

she could probably have gotten away with just singing "moss" ... of course "moffs" would be closer .. but now i'm listening to the difference and "moss" would probably be so minimal most people wouldn't even notice

[@noelleggett5368]

@@Nezumi-- She was a perfectionist. She eventually got it right; she sang it for 40 years. (By the way, ‘moffs’ is how it is usually pronounced by nearly half of my fellow compatriots. You’ll hear it throughout southeastern Australia.)

[@christinestromberg4057]

Many Europeans struggle with :the TH sound which they often don't have in their language. There is an old video of Victor Borge, a Danish pianist/comedian, making a thing of it.

[@emailvonsour]

@@noelleggett5368 embarrassing

[@virtuous-sloth]

I'd be interested in Dr Lindsey speak with ventriloquists about th-s-sh and alternative ways of making them, since I imagine ventriloquists need that skill.

[@starkeclipse]

Oooh yeah. That would be fascinating. Ventriloquism replacement hacks overall would be a fascinating topic.

[@alyanahzoe]

@@starkeclipse 12:52 filipinos glottalize it.

[@AndreiBerezin]

No one needs ventriloquidts tho.

[@kaimaiiti]

I'd rather see him speak with ventriloquists' puppets, often they have more interesting things to say.

[@sierranicholes6712]

my boyfriend is french, and although he has lived in america for ~16 years now, he still drops the final -s off of words!! i've always found it really interesting!

[@allme2547]

A while back, I watched a vid of a couple (Guy was from the South. Girl was from the North) that compared their drastically different way of pronouncing certain words. Maybe you also could make a vid as a couple that showcases something similar!

[@notwithouttext]

probably also a result of french not pronouncing the s anyway except in liaison, so "boîte" and "boîtes" are both said /bwat/

[@sierranicholes6712]

@@notwithouttext yeah i think this is the main reason!!! and he mostly does it for plurals, i think because in french there are typically other markers for when a word is plural (adjectives, articles) that he like subconsciously doesn't view the plural -s ending as being meaningful compared to other -s endings

[@Darxide23]

My girlfriend is a French speaking Belgian and she has the opposite problem. She adds the S sound unnecessarily to the end of a lot of plural words that normally don't get an -S. We have been talking about sushi a lot recently and she says "suishis" instead. Although like most French speakers, her 'th-' is nonexistant and replaced with a 'd' instead, so she doesn't have the problem described in this video with the weak S and SH sounds. She is just fine with those. It's the TH she simply cannot pronounce.

[@egx161]

I am a student of language and all the variations, regional accents, provincialisms, and the interesting way words are used and invented. I think language is more important than mathematics.

[@tottoriteal9661]

The more I watch Dr Lindsey’s videos, the more I become frustrated by language education. I’ve come from studying English at a young age to today living in an English-speaking country and no longer considering myself a “learner”, yet throughout the entire time, I was not told how to pronounce “clothes” or “months” and always thought it was my “th” prononciation. Anyone studying English needs to be shown Dr Lindsey’s videos at a very early stage.

[@atriyakoller136]

I remember just struggling with those words so much even when explained how to pronounce them. Eventually I practiced them so much and heard them enough to be able to automatically pronounce them. As a language teacher I'm frustrated by language education as well. I feel like the only place where you can study a language in-depth and go into all the nooks and crannies is a linguistic university and the department of the language in question. In any other place you are just not given enough hours for the phonetics.

[@carolinejames7257]

Many native speakers have exactly the same problem. We're not taught how to pronounce them, we just pick them up in childhood. If your local dialect uses 'muvver' instead of 'mother', that's probably how you'll pronounce that word despite the fact you can actually produce the 'th' sound. Which is fine. 😁 But if you have a parent who constantly mispronounces certain words or sounds (through lack of education, poor reading skills, mishearing a word and then persistently mispronouncing it, etcetera) then you may well pick up those errors and keep using them (even when exposed to standard forms or corrections at school or elsewhere) and pass them on to your own children. A certain amount of that happens all the time, which can be one way language changes. But others are so glaringly erroneous (not a dialect or local idiom) as to obscure meaning, cause confusion, or lead to deleterious impressions in, for example, job interviews. Believe me, it's not a problem confined to second language learners.

[@ealusaid]

My niece still struggles a lot over her -ths endings. I'm so excited to see if this approach helps her any, because her older brothers definitely act like it's the th sound she's got wrong.

[@yurisei6732]

Language is so complex and inconsistent that I think it's fair enough that there are some words you just have to stumble into getting right as you go.

[@idjles]

He is a linguist and most teachers have never studied linguistics. It's like asking a school teacher how a computer or pen works - they just use them, they don't understand the engineering. A Linguist is a language engineer. And that is why most language learning in a classroom context is terrible, because it's taught with teaching principles, not linguistic. For Example the CELTA training has a 25%:25%:25%:25% focus on listening, speaking, reading and writing, when in reality language learning is probably more like 90% listening, 3% speaking, 7% reading and 0.1% writing.

[@FreakyRufus]

The Japanese heavy metal group Babymetal has a song called “Babymetal Death”, which is really just them introducing themselves. “Babymetal desu” becomes “Babymetal Death” when sung to heavy metal music.

[@qwertzy121212]

What a psychotic thing to say ​@@ivo9202

[@HermanBelmer]

@@ivo9202 what a strange thing to say

[@chocoholicbeverage]

@@ivo9202 what an unusual statement to utter

[@marrow94]

@@ivo9202 they’re 25

[@KarlDeux]

Well as a group you'd rather say "The Japanese heavy metal group Babymetal haVE a song", as a group is plural. Btw, no prob, everybody understood ;) I was lucky enough to watch them on stage last December. I was amazed also by the audience, with family, old hard rock looking people, very young ones as well. BabyMetal are strange, but they are actually universal though very unique.

[@konstanzavalenzuelasanhuez4763]

there's a kid book (i think it's from the narnia's series) where the protagonist is trying to hide with another person, and they decide to speak without the "s" because they sound too loud even when you're whispering.

[@twilightmist7369]

Yes, it was the last Narnia book, The Last Battle. One of the characters said thee instead of see, because it was quieter.

[@megabigblur]

Yes! "Get down! Thee better!"

[@alenaadler8242]

@@megabigbluryeth!!

[@SPQRBob]

​@@alenaadler8242 Yeth ith tho much more thilent!

[@ZuyFean]

As a native Polish speaker, where we have a triple contrast between "s", "sz" (english "sh") and "ś", I felt like these sounds didn't ever pose a problem for my pronunciation. Polish does not, however, have "th". This led me to coping with it for a long time by saying "dat" or "fenk you". Living in the US right now I feel I've improved at both voiced and unvoiced variants of "th", but I think I still pretty often retreat to "d" and "f" when speaking more quickly. Your video was very helpful for my understanding why my Japanese friends would often baffle me by pronouncing "senk you" where my Polish brain would expect "f".

[@InertialMass685]

Fanks! You'd be OK in the UK! Most youth - not just in London (where it began) - now pronounce unvoiced th as 'f'. It is stereotyped as "lower class" speech, immigrant speech, working class speech, etc which can give the impression (prejudice, of course) that the speaker is ill-educated, lazy or a bit unintelligent. I don't like it to be honest but understand it might be difficult for people who have never been taught properly (there are a lot of bad teachers at school!) or whose parents also can't pronounce th (a lot of immigrant families, for example) . I am working-class - growing up in a poor area where English speechcraft and elocution was not the best - but I make the effort to pronounce th properly. I find it quite empowering to speak a language well. When learning Spanish I went to great lengths to ask native Spanish how exactly they articulate particular sounds in their mouths. I think good pronunciation is more important than 100% correct grammar in being understood.

[@danutagajewski3330]

As a Brit-born Pole I used to cringe when my parents and grandparents couldn't pronounce "th." It was either just a t (tank you) or d (dere). Conversely, my issue was with the triple contrast with the s/sz/ś, which to my ear was either s or sh. I'm in my 70s now...and thankfully can manage those contrasts, although not without many tears "tanks" to my mother's insistence on Polish elocution lessons!

[@retrobubblegum]

Actually, English "sh" sound is somewhere between Polish "sz" and "ś" which is why native English speakers have great difficulty distinguishing the two. Poles, on the other hand, tend to replace "sh" with Polish "sz" in English words. Funnily enough, I noticed that older generations of Poles pronounce the voiced "th" as "z" rather than "d" (so "zis" and "zat" not "dis" and "dat") - not sure when and why it changed, could be a fun thing to examine more deeply.

[@arkadiuszfilipczyk488]

As others have explained, sz is not sh, you can quickly see in Wikipedia what the difference is. But moving from established facts to my personal experience, there is a funny thing going on with how Polish (me) and English (Aussies) speakers hear each other's sounds. I hear English sh usually as sz. If I had not learnt better, I would too think that they are the same sounds. And ś to me sounds very different. So usually, like most Poles, I use my sz in English words that call for sh. However, interestingly, Aussies often hear my sz as s. If I want to make sure they hear sh, I actually use ś.

[@ZuyFean]

@@arkadiuszfilipczyk488 I just read about the difference, that's pretty interesting. Wikipedia also states there are some regional Polish dialects that merge sz and ś into the sh sound, and the same for the voiced variants - rz and ź merge into the sound found for example in English viSIon - where I always used the "rz" sound.

[@Front540]

As a child I remember learning (from a Narnia book?) how to avoid being overheard when whispering. They said to consciously speak with a lisp, as the S sound is so strong that it can clearly be noticed even if you're trying to be quiet. I'm really pleased to hear the linguistics behind this explained so clearly decades later!

[@lanasinapayen3354]

As a French speaker of English, Japanese, and Spanish, who is hypnotized by spelling and scared of th, this video was awesome

[@David_Robert]

Hello 👋How are you doing today?

[@alyanahzoe]

@@David_Robert 무슨 말해, 친구?

[@DaveChurchill]

That transition to the sponsor was a masterclass. Well done

[@stuchly1]

All of those sounds in one sentence. Nice.

[@bearcubdaycare]

Good match of sponsor to topic.

[@TheInkPitOx]

Sneaky jerk

[@j.g.campbell3440]

S-s-subtle!!!

[@megabigblur]

It's the only time a KZbin ad has actually made me laugh

[@jadziajagoda6187]

Dr Lindsey, you’re worth your weight in gold. I was learning RP pronunciation, but gave up when it came to „s” sound. Even though I don’t have a lisp, I just couldn’t do the „s” sound the way the articulators were shown on the mouth cross-section image. I was thinking, either I do have a lisp, or I’m mental, or deaf, but I can’t reproduce the sound the way which is shown, even though I seem to achieve the same effect in some different way... Now it’s all clear, and I even can make the „s” closer to English way ☺️

Are you sure you are learning RP pronunciation? Basically no one speaks RP these days, and it's not really taught either. (They are probably teaching you some contemporary prestige accent of British English, and just call it RP. See some of the other videos of Dr Lindsey for more background on RP.)

[@timosalo5003]

The case of RP… For us non-English, ”received pronunciation” sounds so natural, modest, time tested and uncomplicated that we don’t suspect any privilege (not to mention a fad) being involved. Promoted by public schools, you know.

@@timosalo5003 No. Listen to some actual RP. Dr Lindsey has some examples in some of his videos. You are mixing it up with modern prestige dialects.

[@Ezullof]

You were sinking? How did you get help?

[@WitchOracle]

​@@timosalo5003 just a note that "public schools" in England refer to schools for the elites. "Public" in this case refers to the fact that they are open to students of any denomination or location, but they are not publicly funded, there are tuition fees.

[@cboneperlstone9661]

The segue to the ad was incredible. I was floored with the smoothness

[@ChelseyK1ng]

Russian English learners often substitute "th" with "s" and "z". Not so much "f" and "v". Just an interesting fact.

[@jezalb2710]

​@@ChelseyK1ngwe Slavic folks tend to pronounce "th" differently. Depending whether it is : Soft "th" - like in: thank you. Hard "th"- like in: then/than

[@FairyCRat]

TH-fronting definitely is a thing for some non-natives. My French dad once walked into an Indian restaurant in Dublin meaning to ask for "a table for three" but instead requesting "a table for free", which the lady found hilarious.

[@badaboum2]

It's even permeated french popular culture to some extent, like the 90s boys band "2Be3" was a play on "to be free".

[@timolson4809]

This was probably also the case of being in Ireland, where “th” is instead pronounced as an ejective t, the opposite of th fronting.

[@Nikola_M]

Voiceless th turning into f is also in Austrian accents. (Voiced th by the way turns into d)

[@KittyHerder]

I have had Irish coworkers who call it "tree".

[@FairyCRat]

@@timolson4809 An ejective? While in Dublin, I've heard it more pronounced as a typical dental stop, though it probably does sometimes occur as an ejective word-finally.

[@TerezatheTeacher]

My English phonetics teacher at uni told me I had a lisp, which completely shocked me. I even saw a speech therapist, who quickly gave up, saying that my front teeth are just hella weird. She made me put the tip of my tongue behind my lower front teeth, which is what all the diagrams show for Czech /s/, but I just can't produce the right sound like that. Made me realize I pronounce the English /s/ when I speak Czech. Years later, job interview at a school. The headmistress says I pronounce the English /s/ when speaking Czech, which is a problem, but that she's willing to overlook it and hire me. Made me self-conscious, so I refused and ended up with a better-paying job somewhere else.

[@tantuce]

Try positioning your tongue behind the teeth in all sorts of different ways and maybe moving the lower jaw as well, just keeping your lips open. And you'll get there.

[@TerezatheTeacher]

​@@tantuceThanks for the encouragement but I won't bother. The only people (to my knowledge) who have ever noticed the difference are trained phoneticians/speech therapists, everybody else was as surprised as me. So I'll just keep doing my "good enough" English /s/ in my other languages.

[@carcyaxon5532]

By the sound of it I've been using the Czech /s/ when speaking English all my life. I only found out a few years ago when learning Mandarin (same /s/ as Czech, apparently), but I learned that I can only really make a high pitched whistle when I try to do it the 'normal' English way. The words for this are 'apical' (tongue tip) and 'laminal' (tongue blade). Also, I don't know if it has to do with how I pronounce /s/, but the apical /s/ can really bug me when it makes that whistle sound too

[@lanasinapayen3354]

​@tantuce clearly you mean well but the fact that she literally saw professionals makes it clear she won't just 'get there' with one youtube comment

[@Richdragon4]

I can't get myself to pronounce the Czech R as a native Czech, which actually led some people to believe I am Moldavian. Considering the amount of people with similar issues in our country it is shocking.

[@MeowMeow-bi4lj]

I had some tooth complications and had some teeth removed almost two years ago, and I have braces now. At first I found it really hard to make sibilant sounds without enough teeth near the front of my mouth, but discovered that I could actually use the wire bridging the gap where the teeth used to be as the air blockage point to articulate the sound. My sibilants now honestly sound better than they ever used to before, even if how they're articulated is a little unorthodox.

[@etorepugatti9196]

Hum, repeat after me, Surf shark is superb without expelling the braces..😊

[@dominusalicorn3684]

Oh my goodness, 4:56 was THe Smoothest transiTIOn to an ad I've ever seen

[@Sokrabiades]

I know. That was so sick. This should be the top comment.

[@JohnWilliams-gy5yc]

/*_S_*/moo/*_TH_*/e/*_S_*/t /*_S_*/pon/*_S_*/or /*_S_*/egue

[@qwertywillbecool]

That advert blend was impeccable lol

[@Jake-ek8qp]

I literally laughed out loud and went to like the video, but I'd already liked it.

[@TravelingSponge1A]

The original advertisement in its entirety is even better. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zn64pImZjs14iLssi=9BSdTiJEhZHTLzxi

[@notwithouttext]

maybe he only ac/s/epted their /s/pon/s/or/ʃ/ip when he found the right topic, like /ð/i/s/ one!

[@jkkay477]

I didn't see any advert? Oh that's right, I have SponsorBlock.

[@DavidFrankland]

@@jkkay477 Cheers! I'm going to investigate before KZbin deletes your comment.

[@trevoro.9731]

Also, I recommended you earlier African Grey parrots, they, unlike many other parrots, can make distinction between human sounds at the level of pronounced letters (some can make up new words out of sounds) and transform them to their understanding - and it is remarkable because they don't have the generic human speech adaptation for the specific range of frequency and sequences - resulting in clearly distinct and characteristic identification and reproduction of separate sounds - in particular, "s" is reproduced as loud vowel-type high frequency sound (it appears that most of African Grey parrots who learned to identify separate sounds reproduce it in that way). It is still perceived by humans and parrots as "s", loud and clear "s".

[@1earflapping]

Which raises the question: how do parrots create human speech sounds when they have neither lips nor teeth?

[@trevoro.9731]

@@1earflapping There are a lot of studies how parrots reproduce sounds.

[@caffetiel]

​@@1earflapping Syrinx. It's a neat organ

[@Dr_Mel]

It never occurred to me that the finger to the lips when shushing someone is, intentionally or unintentionally, enhancing the potency of the shush.

[@CraftIP]

I thought it was symbolic but I really like the hypothesis of it making the shhh louder

[@widmo206]

That actually works

[@CallMeMrChainmail]

You put your finger on your own mouth?

[@NeonBeeCat]

​@@CallMeMrChainmailas opposed to, someone else's mouth? Someone else's fingers???

[@swored.]

@@NeonBeeCat😂 who knows

[@CarlosMagnussen]

As a Dutch speaker, I usually replace th sounds with t or d, instead of a sibbilant. I believe that this is what has historically happened to the Dutch language as well, as can be seen in our definite article (English "the" vs. Dutch "de") and demonstratives (English "this" and "that" vs. Dutch "deze/dit" and "die/dat").

[@MaoRatto]

I hope this makes you happy. When I speak very fast, apparently my coworkers only hear my TH's as T's in the beginnings of words, but at the ends of words often switches to purely an F. Also it doesn't help regionally. Vowels are much stickier so OF +THE often slam into each other. Eachother I think of as one word due to o became /ʌ̈:/ in that context and ea -> /ʏ/ or with a glottal stop. Doesn't help when I speak, I have a tendency to shove consonants in the back of my throat or front them for sharper contrast. TR, DR, SR ( only foreign words), but using a tapped R to avoid cluttering, but use the normal back R in-between words, but over-rhotic due to a more inwards mouth position. So vowel contrast becomes more important. Though at a huge consequence with harsh R sounds following rhotic vowels. There ( daar ) almost no longer becoming a homophone of their for me. :X

[@alyanahzoe]

i agree with carlos.

[@trademarkshelton]

I like that it seems like you found a good portion of your clips while watching videos about making KZbin videos. Always encouraging to see people you respect working to improve their craft

[@stevecarter8810]

More than one of my German colleagues ends up saying "thomesing" for "something". i love what this suggests about the cognitive processes happening for them

[@meyague]

it's more to do with muscle memory and the development of their mouth than a cognitive process.

[@TP-om8of]

Don’t mention the war.

[@f1mbultyr]

@@meyague no. That is only true for people who still have trouble with the th-sound in general and replace them all with s. The switching up between th and s within the same word (thomesing) comes after people have mastered the th and it's very much a cognitive process that gets screwed up there, that's not muscle memory anymore (otherwise it would be (somesing).

[@f1mbultyr]

Happens to me way too often

[@rateeightx]

Honestly I've done stuff like that as a native English speaker sometimes haha, Usually if I'm saying a word with both a 'th' and an 's' sound in it, Like "Something", I might swap them, Although I often catch the mistake quickly, Make fun of myself, And correct it.

[@Sir_Austin_T_Gee]

I am an American from deep in the Ozarks. I pronounce “months” as “munts” and “month” as “munt”. Didn’t realize it until I moved somewhere else. Crazy.

[@MaoRatto]

For me it switched from Month -> /mɒ̈̃fs/ (sometimes with another n/m) in the singular... mʌ̈nθ̼ ... As f and θ̼ for me are treated as allophones as a last syllable. So I can tell the difference in first syllables, second, but not third. The nasal quality happens time to time due to stressing certain parts and a more closed mouth position.

[@WolfA4]

I'm a native new yorker and I say "munfs", same for other similar th words like ninety-fird, and "maf" instead of math.

[@MaoRatto]

@@WolfA4 ._. For me, it just nasalized. Though Ninety-Three is much like " naindɨθɾ̥ï: " ( sometimes the N just becomes nasalized ). Typically in the possessive/plural, the vowel typically becomes more open. So an unintentional consequence of sort of needing a long vs. short system is due to vowels voicing or leniting consequences. So a soft glottal or d comes out.

[@lindickison3055]

Also Ozarks.Do say 'munts'(kinda awkwardly tongue-y to say months . But we do say 'munth'. I'm frequently accused of saying "thang"! Can't do "thing" without stopping midsentence!!

[@Sir_Austin_T_Gee]

@@lindickison3055 I’m from that portion of the Ozarks that kinda sounds like a hillbilly from Appalachia had a baby with somebody from the heart of Saint Louis; tal’n ‘bout “babe, whurr’s my car keys, ya say’n ’em?”

[@richardcochran260]

A fascinating video, as always! I'm a native speaker of American English, married to a native speaker of Venezuelan Spanish. Venezuelans seem to be particularly prone to de-emphasize or sometimes completely drop the final "S" from words in Spanish. And their Spanish is perfectly understandable the way they pronounce it. I've picked up that habit from her when I speak Spanish, while I've tried (with mixed success) to break her of the habit when she speaks English. You've clearly articulated what I knew intuitively but didn't know how to explain: Proper pronunciation of that sound is absolutely vital to carry the meanings of so many English terms. On a related note, my wife neither hears nor articulates the difference between "n" and "m" at the end of English words. I'm frequently trying to fix her pronunciation of "gum"/"gun", "William"/"Willian", "drone"/"drome" and similar pairs, some members of which are not actual words in English. I've heard her sisters and other Venezuelan friends make the same mistakes. I suspect the distinction between those two final consonants is rarely crucial in Spanish.

[@Zzyzzyx]

I find the same with my Venezuelan students. They also seem to mix and match final /k/ and /t/.

[@Paul71H]

@@Zzyzzyx The n/m thing helps to explain why Albert Pujols (American baseball player from the Dominican Republic) talks about hitting "hone runs".

[@languageservices8723]

Note that English words that end in M often end in N in Spanish. Jerusalem is Jerusalén in Spanish. Bethlehem is Belén. Harem is jarén.

[@marcoscuervosantos8594]

Spanish only has one native nasal coda spelled -n and realised [n̪] ,or [ŋ] in some varieties. Coda m only appears in unadapted loanwords, from Latin very often or English, and are only contrasted with the native coda by some speakers, in higher prestige situations mostly. Same goes for coda k and t, neither appear in native words so nativised pronunciations include: nor pronouncing them, changing k to [ɣ] or [χ], depending on how that variety treats native codas , and t to [θ],[ð], or changing both to s, with all the implications that has on "s-dropping" varieties.

[@andrewdunbar828]

Final -s dropping in Spanish doesn't exist in Mexico or at least is rare enough I can't remember it, but as you go south it gets really common somewhere around Nicaragua or Honduras. Final -d and -g start to blur after that too.

[@sb792079]

I’ve been making the “bottom lip S” this entire time, and I never noticed! I was so confused for 80% of the video because the mouth shapes didn’t look what I was used to doing at all.

[@markfoskey]

I do it the "teeth way", and I tried using the "lower lip" approach and found it really hard! I guess we get a lot of practice making speech sounds.

[@Darxide23]

It now makes a lot more sense to me why some people's S sound is so... unattractive and grating to my ear. It's the lower lip S doing it and I never knew that was a thing.

[@Zederok]

As someone who was unfortunately born with a pronounced underbite and even less unfortunate losing my front teeth in my early 30's in a work place accident I have always used the bottom lip to produce S. This video was astounding and very informative.

[@clearlieme]

Me too! And I tried to do the high tongue S and really struggle without pulling an absolutely insane face to accomodate

[@Selieca]

I always thought that an S was made using the teeth, but I've just tried it while moving my bottom lip. Apparently, even though my tongue is in the "teeth" position, the actual sound is due to my lip

[@myriamm9917]

When you removed the "th" and it still sounded like "thin", that might have been the most important moment of my life. I'm really shocked

[@andyhurrell]

In contrast (?) I was taught that if we remove the first moment of "attack" on a longish note produced by a musical instrument, the identity of the instrument can be difficult to determine. This suggests that the essence of a musical instrument's timbre is embodied in the initial few milliseconds when transient overtones are in abundance. How this relates to the "thin" example I'm not sure, but I suppose it depends how much of the initial sound is chopped off.

[@jergarmar]

My daughter has gotten over a lisp almost completely, but I was kind of confused why words like "complex" cause her lips to come together somewhat, hiding her bottom teeth, compared to how "dentally" I say it (with very open lips). Only from this video (and having her say some of these words) did I realize that she was using her bottom lip! And not only that, but Dr. Lindsey pointed out that it's even somewhat common. So in a very practical way, thanks for the video; I feel that I need to worry less about this particularity about her speech. Linguistics is way more complicated than it seems!

[@missellyssa]

Thank you for including that clip at the beginning! That has been my favorite ad for 15 years!!

[@patrickhodson8715]

You literally said “it’s just finished” (2:50) like within 3sec of my laundry finishing in the other room

[@widmo206]

_There are no accidents_ - Master Oogway

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

I'm the giant from Twin Peaks

[@TestUser-cf4wj]

​@@DrGeoffLindseythank for being a Twin Peaks fan

[@alyanahzoe]

@@DrGeoffLindsey twin peaks?

[@Vingul]

@@alyanahzoe Twin Peaks is a great TV show from 1990/1991 created by David Lynch and Mark Frost.

[@donhall2759]

As a former audio engineer who produced radio ads, I have fought many battles with very sound 's' sibilance, which come so fast and so loud that they can easily create grating distortion in recorded audio. When we started using digital editing equipment we were able to isolate each instance of 's' and reduce it's volume, but you can imagine how many such edits are required in a thirty-second voiceover! This can be fixed in the microphone signal chain ("Boss, we need more expensive equipment!") and some speakers are much more sibilant than others.

[@Dunkle0steus]

Just finished a year in Japan as an English teacher. This video might've been helpful if I'd been able to watch it a year ago!

[@wetteefun]

Yes this is typical! I’m Dutch and lived in Thailand for many years. Most Thais when they want to learn English want a ‘native’ speaker as well, not realizing that being a native speaker doesn’t make you a good teacher. Native speakers often don’t have a clue what are the particular problems of their own language. They mostly don’t understand why their students make the mistakes they make.

[@KyleWeiher]

@@wetteefun Me learning German has, for the first time, made me think properly about how English works, and how ridiculous it is in the end compared to some other, more regular and structured languages.

[@mc-not_escher]

It’s this realization that allowed me to learn Slovenian, strangely enough. I figured out that the position of my palate was causing problems with pronunciation simply due to the fact that I was so accustomed to English so over time I figured out how to dynamically switch from one to the other, much in the same way with Spanish with the rolled R. Truly fascinating video!!

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

I often come to these videos with a strong sense of accomplishment in my L2 skills and leave with a profound insecurity that I may insufficiently pronounce something I had never questioned before. Today's video did not disappoint. Especially considering I heard the 's' that supposedly wasn't there in the clip starting at 10:46. I just thought it was retracted like the 'n' before it.

[@jakezjones]

Some native speakers delete the final "s" in words ending -sks, -sts, -sps. I've heard a few people from South Carolina do it. And it seems strange when I hear them say what sounds like "I eat a pack of crisp" because, as Dr Geoff says, the "s" sounds is important to the meaning. 4:05

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

Totally brilliant! Talk about learning things you didn’t even know you didn’t know.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you!

[@tannerh7774]

Dr. Lindsey, after watching your video, once again I am left questioning things I took for granted. I consider you a true scientist; you base your thoughts on your own tangible research instead of just echoing what is said by those who are esteemed. You inspire me to trust my own thoughts and dive deep into my own suspicions. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with the world.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you! One of the best comments I've ever had.

[@brianarsuaga5008]

This is, by far, the most effective sponsorship that I've ever encountered. I had to play it multiple times to keep pace, and so "thank you to surf shark" is going to be in my brain for an annoyingly long time. Feels like cheating, but good on them for sponsoring good work.

[@notwithouttext]

2:50 and even "does" or "us" as in "what's he want" and "let's do it"

[@Nikola_M]

S Battle Advanced

[@notwithouttext]

@@Nikola_M aj sij ajslij pəzəlz fæn ɑr jʉw

[@Ms.Pronounced_Name]

8:20 i didn't hear "thin" here, i heard "bin" for some reason. I'll try it again later with a different pair of headphones, and some speakers I've got at home

[@ozenugurlu3319]

I heard bin too!

[@aitzepe]

As a Basque speaker of Spanish, that pronunciation of the "s" sound felt so foreign to me that I'm still in shock. I never realized we pronounce it so differently between each other. 😲

[@WildStar2002]

I was on a red-eye flight some years ago and I heard a couple speaking softly to each other a few aisles in front of me. I didn't understand the language, but I got the impression that it was quite sibilant - hissy, like two snakes speaking together. I was *very* surprised when I listened more closely, trying to identify the language, when I suddenly realized it was my own native English - and that I was hearing it the way non-native speakers probably hear the language! 😮🤣 And now I have a better understanding of *why!* Thanks, Dr. Lindsey! 😄

[@patrickstrasser-mikhail6873]

In the Austrian Army, you learn to replace s by th for camouflaged communcation. The s can be hard much farther than any other sound. Using th keeps everthing perfectly understandably, as German has no use of th, and it can be understood as a allophone of s (while considered wrong and a possible language disorder.)

[@moritamikamikara3879]

Very interesting

[@alyanahzoe]

just use “þ”. it will make life easier.

[@villeporttila5161]

Great video. So many L2 speakers say English is 'easy'. That's only because learners of English are not expected to learn the language to as high a standard as learners of other languages - it's almost a given that you don't have to bother learning the difficult pronunciations. If you actually learn English to a truly high C2 standard rather than just swapping out the bits you can't be bothered to master, it's extremely difficult

[@vaska1999]

Extremely? Hmmm.

[@villeporttila5161]

@@vaska1999 I'm talking about learning English to C2 standard. That means no pronunciation features inherited from the L1, proper native-standard use of phrasal verbs, no excessive noun usage, no lazy misuse of tenses, and so on. It's extremely rare you see an L2 English speaker really get to that level, and I think that's because lower standards are accepted than they are for learners of other languages. I'd say that makes it extremely difficult

[@vaska1999]

@@villeporttila5161 The same is true for all other languages, most of which are far more complex and therefore much more difficult to master than English.

[@mnm8818]

well in English- change the tense of one word and you have to change the whole paragraph of words its in. crazy when i realised other languages don't need this... I'd like a modernisation of languages rant: also there's no need for plural when you already have 5 words before it starting its going to be a plural form... its redundant... eg ten cat, many cat- we all know theres ten or many of the cat species...

[@HolgerJakobs]

English has a flat leaning curve at the beginning, but it gets steeper and steeper. It's the other way around in many languages. Once you get over the first difficulties, things become easier.

[@TheForeignersNetwork]

Beyond being important for grammatical purposes, the /s/ phoneme also has sociolinguistic connotations, at least in American English. Hypersibilant /s/ phonemes are associated with femininity, to the point where males who use this phoneme can be perceived as effeminate. This phoneme is made with the tip of the tongue pointing upwards. In contrast, hyposibilant /s/ phonemes are often associated with masculinity, and are pronounced with the tip of the tongue pointing downwards. AAVE is a dialect where this pronunciation is particularly common among both males and females, while other dialects have a prominent gender divide in terms of the pronunciations of that letter. This is very interesting because it also affects mouth posture and the way that some vowels are pronounced.

[@default3252]

4:03 "I can't call to mind a single process of English which deletes a final /s/ or /z/ - they're just too important." Unless I'm misunderstanding, isn't AAVE an example? Possessive 's can be deleted, so you get phrases like "my momma house."

[@KirkWaiblinger]

Yeah, also, AAVE adapts the th sounds differently (d/dth instead of f/v). Maybe he just spends more time focused on British English 🤷‍♂️

[@AllUpOns]

Good call. I knew there had to be something. I think AAVE can also drop plurals, ie Fitty Cent instead of fifty cents.

[@MrAntonla]

Also, I think that I have heard that whenever General American can make contractions, AAVE can omit.

[@keith6706]

AAVE has a general trend of deleting final consonant, but by far "s" and "z" are more likely to be retained. Possessive 's is dropped as a grammatical change, not a phonological one.

[@revolution1237]

​@@AllUpOnsHere's another example: "It's wild how all animals be openin' they mouth when they hype!" As you can see, there are two contradictions (I don't know what's the better term for this) here. "Animal" has the plural -s whereas "mouth" doesn't. Fascinating.

[@coolandhip_7596]

I spent years dealing with a mild lisp unable to figure out what to do with my tongue to pronounce s properly. After several years of trying and many searches on youtube i came across a video that explained it as a breathy t which did wonders. I am glad to see the wide diversity in means of making what we perceive as an s.

[@pansepot1490]

That’s cool! Nowadays one can learn almost everything on KZbin.

[@laurencefraser]

"sixths" is a fun one. So many ways to (fail to) resolve that "-ksths" consonant cluster. So far as I can tell, I actually tend to lose the s sound from the x, but there are definitely people who lose the th (and then struggle with having two distinctly Seperate S sounds with... nothing in between, because it's obviously not just siks, but there's no vowel in there, but...)

[@Sir_Austin_T_Gee]

I cannot hardly pronounce anything similar: fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. I’m a native speaker of American English - but I’m also from where the hillbillies live. Those words come out as “fif, six, sevent, nont, tent, levent, twelf”.

[@notwithouttext]

i say "fith" and "twelth", and i pronounce all the sounds in "sixth", but if i were to drop a sound it would be the "th". also fun one: "asthma" has a silent th in it

[@Zzyzzyx]

Yeah, I say "sikths" for sixths.

[@thatotherted3555]

I hear more British people say "sicth" and more Americans say "sixt" and in all honesty I (an American) find both versions kind of annoying, but my "six'ss" is probably the least clear option 🤔

[@angeldude101]

I'm pretty sure I front the th in "sixths", giving something like "siksts".

[@Mr.Nichan]

19:33 When I tried to imitate his tongue position (tip between the teeth) but still make an [s], I succeeded pretty well even when I pulled my lips out of the way by just using a further back part of my tongue to make the constriction at my alveolar ridge (so I guess I pronounced it sort of "dorso-alveolar", though it wasn't THAT far back of a part of my toungue, so it's sort of between that and "laminal alveolar" or whatever I guess). I can hear the lower lip making it louder and higher pitched, though.

[@balaam_7087]

Some say the gopher from Winnie the Pooh haunts the nightmares of Dr Geoff Lindsey. And now you’re re-reading this post in the gopher’s voice, whistling each ‘s’…

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

I love comments I have to research to understand

[@robinharwood5044]

I don’t recall any gophers in the Hundred Acre Wood.

[@q-tuber7034]

@@robinharwood5044this character is not in Milne, but was added in Disney’s film adaptation

[@artugert]

I was going to comment that I was surprised he didn’t mention the “whistled” s.

[@kkaree1234]

I would add the beaver from The Lady and the Tramp too

[@nemesis962074]

This made me realize that Mexican Spanish “S” is very similar to the English “S”. However we do lack the “Z” sound, which is why a last name such as Zapata is pronounced Sapata in Mexican Spanish. As a native Spanish speaker I never had an issue with the “S” but it took me over 7 years to get the “Z” sound down

[@joelwebster8227]

The amount of thought and work that goes into Dr Lindsey’s videos is mind-blowing, and this is no exception. The transition into the sponsor read is, as has been pointed out, nothing short of brilliant. Thank you, Surf Shark and thank you, Geoff!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

I really appreciate it

[@mpchess1379]

Honestly, for learners, the English "s" is the first hurdle. 04:00 the "deletion" comes as a consequence of not being confident on how plural works and if the "s" is indeed the plural or not. Once learners understand the language to a certain degree "s" sounds become a safe haven, the stress is always around "th", undoubtedly more notorious, hence the focus, also beginners try to produce more sound from it even though as you clearly show, it is not supposed to sound loud. there are far harder challenges than the ubiquitous "s". 13:02 english "s" is a pretty easy sound at least for me. 13:33 It may look like Spaniards should have an easier time with certain English sounds especially because they indeed share some similarities, that and the fact the grammar is more similar to English than the other latin derived languages, that said spanish can be quite simple and repetitive with it's sounds so rather than easily adapting the similar sounds the Spanish often just carry over a their thick accent at first. I think it is noteworthy that the Japanese language has many gairaigo from english and these words remain largely unchanged but slightly adapted and so it becomes somewhat difficult for learners of any language not to pronounce words that are written the same way in their native way.

[@carylgibbs6094]

My linguistics professor in grad school picked up on /sh/ for the s in street when a student spoke in class and correctly guessed her family had come from Britain. I have never forgotten that difference and now I live in the UK and I hear it every single day.

[@elizabethdixon5536]

The Sh often comes when pronouncing st before r here in Australia too. You’ll hear “Aushtralia”.

[@alyanahzoe]

@@elizabethdixon5536 6:53 안 돼! 나는 정말 무서워요! *“동물들의 사랑해 (악보)” 가 재생하기*

[@WGGplant]

that happens in pretty much all dialects of english. im from Alabama in the US and i so that as well.

[@philipgrant7888]

Some examples of that from the UK, US and Australia here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fGO7YqOBeq18j9k. It's not just a British thing, but perhaps the professor had also picked up (even subconsciously) on some other features in the student's speech?

[@n0tthemessiah]

Related to the 'Articulation' section: a decade or so ago I got a prosthetic device to replace a front tooth that had to be removed (lateral incisor). It's a clever little thing that goes across my palate and fits in a gap on the other side of my mouth. Anyway, my point is that I basically have a false palate from this prosthetic that sits a bit lower in my mouth than my real one and it made pronouncing S really hard for a good few weeks until my tongue got used to it. Now, whenever I take it out, it's equally difficult to pronounce S sounds without it!

[@elisaastorino2881]

I had the same problem when a dentist decided that aesthetics were more important than speech.

[@jitsukerr]

Fascinating. I have a gap between my upper two front teeth, and when I'm tired I can find my s's starting to slip into th's -- a particular problem when singing. While I've never had a lisp, this video has helped me work out some issues with my s mouth shape and develop some potential strategies for more effective sibilant formation. My singing teacher will be very happY!

[@danicarr6625]

This is very interesting to me! I'm a native English speaker who happened to have had many ear infections when I was learning to speak and therefore heard incorrectly and pronounced "W" "S" and "R" incorrectly. I was taught to bring the to of my tongue near the pallet of my front teeth. It's fun experimenting with so many other options!

[@fburton8]

0:05 Reminds me of an old Victor Lewis sketch where he calls an electrical goods shop pretending to be a German customer wanting help with a TV that he accidentally poured Blue Nun ("very good, expensive wine") into and is now "very smoking". "and so I put my hand into ze back." "I would switch off the mains first before you put it out." "I do not come from Mainz, I am from Frankfurt." "Switch the electricity mains off!" "Please sir, please.. if I touch the one on the side like this..." *bang!* "Hello? Hello?" "Hello... I was thrown across the room. The television has blown, there is glass everywhere. What is the number of the ambulance, please?" "999" "Why are you saying no to me?"

[@David_Robert]

Hello 👋how are you doing today??

[@leslieschott754]

Laughing my head off! Of course you’d have to know that “nein” in German means “no” and is pronounced “ nine”! 😂

[@paulvandermaas6639]

Blue Nun white wine is seen as cheap plonk in the UK. A joke wine equated to vinegar. Nobody admits to liking or buying it. It's a class thing. Lol

[@NicolaAbraham]

Also, as a person who uses hearing aids, this video is interesting because it adds more insight into how it is that our ability to distinguish between crucially important consonants is compromised.

[@ardellolnes5663]

Lol I asked my boss for a big fan to dry a couch we spot cleaned. He said "I don't know, in housekeeping closet by plates and silverware.". I exclaimed, "boss! Fffff-aaaa-nn!, I can't dry a couch with a P-P-PHHH-PAN! don't have front teeth!!". I did find it really funny I also had a Hispanic coworker think I said mouse, when I had said mouth. Again I exclaimed, "mouth! Ouuuuthhh! Thhhhhhh! I don't have front teeth!"

[@caraiya]

This was an awesome coverage of how essential the consonant is within the language, and how it differs from many other languages. Thanks so much!! 🤩

[@christopherrseay3148]

this is the first video i've ever seen from you. i'm hooked

[@jessehammer123]

Lucky! I recommend Hard Attack, Theme Tunes, Pink Panther, and Sbeech as my favorite videos (those aren’t their names, but they are the operative words).

[@Mullkaw]

there's a smorgasbord of great videos on this channel! I recommend CAN and CANT, foreign words like PASTA, and Why these English phonetic symbols are all WRONG

[@TechieSewing]

Was Weak Forms for me. Highly recommend that one :)

[@leslieschott754]

Me too! Fascinating, and I thought I’d like to teach English!

[@trishgreydanus7004]

I remember asking a Spanish speaking person what English sounded like as a "tune" and they made a droning sound. This made sense in comparison to their own roller coaster language sound. But now i am hearing the impact of the consonants at the end of so many words creating little halts all through the sentences. Especially listening to your British delivery.

[@seileach67]

You may be interested in Dr. Lindsay's video on the rhythm of English speech relating to the Pink Panther theme song. I love that video and re-watch it occasionally.

[@tonycook7679]

I once accused a native German speaker of having a guttural sound to his spoken language. He told me that Germans say that English speakers "hiss like snakes". I had to admit that this is true. My Cambodian wife has just told her friends that "I don't eat breakfa'h ever". No "st" could be heard. Perfect, I can understand her completely.

[@anglend]

One proof that "S" is a strong sound can be found in choral singing. If even one singer accidently pluralizes a lyric, no matter how small or large the group, it will cut through like a knife. Think of the solo piccolo in John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever". .

[@AnimeSunglasses]

Oooofff, can confirm...

[@halnywiatr]

Dr. Lindsey, you really must do a collaborative video with ventriloquists. That would be a master class in alternative sound and tone generation.

[@YeiWay]

the Mexican S sound is actually pronounce as strong as the English sound, Mexicans tend to have more problems with the TH sound rather that the S sound, mostly to being perceived kinda like a D sound

[@zelandakhniteblade5436]

Germans often struggle massively with this soft th to s transition. I sometimes recommend them to practice saying the word myths, with the suggestion of starting with the tongue tip between the teeth and pulling it back to form the s. The other major confusion in this area comes between sh and j. I once went to a meeting in Germany about shop jobs and literally could not tell the difference between the words, having to rely exclusively on the context for understanding. No doubt Dr Lindsey can easily explain that one too. Finally, on the s formation, I also had issues with this sound and even speech therapy as a child. In watching this video I realised that I form the s using the teeth and tongue as the constriction with no idea that this might be unusual. I can pull both lips away with no change in sound for the th, s and sh and simply move the tongue in and out to transition between them. I wonder how many others do the same thing.

[@AllUpOns]

I believe that is the "standard" English way of producing a loud S sound. I'm pretty sure Dr Lindsey was just exploring alternative methods that might not be as capable of producing the same volume.

[@a_kris]

Now I, a German speaker, am sitting here at six in the morning trying to figure out why shop and job sound so similar when we pronounce these words. I guess I'm doing it wrong as well 😂 My guess: We tend to shorten the o sound and skip the /d/ in the /dʒ/ sound almost entirely or replace it with a short /t/ which makes it sound more like sh. Some dialect speakers might have less trouble. Did you speak with southern Germans back then?

[@zelandakhniteblade5436]

@@a_kris It's possible I should have said Franconian rather than German, since Ps and Bs here are a little special but I suspect the difficulty in pronouncing the English j (closest equivalent being a German dsch- as in Dschungel) is fairly universal. Combined with the hardening of German sh at the start of a word to sch, the result, in this meeting at least, is a nebulous sound somewhere in-between (dsch- vs sch-). From a German perspective I can easily imagine the sounds are completely different, as per u and ü or final -e and -a, which in some (not all) contexts, sound to me completely identical but Germans assure me are quite distinct.

[@natgrant1364]

I thought for sure this would be about the "TH" sounds but "S?" What's so hard about the letter "S?" I guess it's something I never thought about. I had always just noticed how much trouble a lot of non-native speakers have with "TH" sounds so I assumed it was that. Very informative! I really like these videos.

[@kkjhn41]

Interesting to note that while Americans speak with loud sibilants they do not like hearing them, especially in music. In the recording studio we use devices ( or software in digital recording) called de-essers to reduce or even remove sibilants from vocals. If people only knew how much the sound of their favorite singer has been sculpted by engineers and producers.

[@loopbraider]

That's really interesting, thanks!

[@ThiagoFSR83]

I'd like to thank (fank🤭) Dr. Lindsay. I'm a Brazilian linguage teacher (Portuguese and English). Some of these videos help me a lot to produce more and better English classes to my studants. Cheers from Brasil!

[@fugithegreat]

Like in the song " 'S Wonderful", you can even cut the "it" out of "it's" and just leave the 's.

[@iout]

I've noticed in a lot of online conversations I've been a part of that I and many others have started writing " 's alright" or " 's good" more often.

[@cathjj840]

'S ok. Rully, I mean it, 's ok, man.

[@thatotherted3555]

" 'Zat so?"

[@catriona_drummond]

S'pose it is.

[@alyanahzoe]

@@catriona_drummond not for me.

[@petrhomolac3740]

I have been learning English more than 50 years but nobody ever told me the essential difference in decibels between th and s! Extremely useful information, it solves my problems with that and for many Czech speakers too I think, thanks very much.

[@philiptaylor7902]

I remember an ancient Benny Hill (radio!) sketch where he was playing a supposedly French character who spoke in perfect English. When challenged if he was really French he replied "It's hard enough to pronounce all the s's in English, let alone with a French accent"

[@KarlDeux]

I am not sure Benny was able to speak French, but when his accent when he was speaking French in his sketches was very good.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Benny Hill on the radio?? Must check that out!

[@philiptaylor7902]

@@DrGeoffLindsey Actually, it was an LP, which why thought it was the radio as a child. Issued as “Benny at the BBC” / “The World of Benny Hill” according to the interweb, not sure if it’s possible to get hold of a copy these days. The sketches may have been originally televised.

[@philiptaylor7902]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I stand corrected, it was Hugh Paddick on "Beyond our Ken" kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqWvkHt6o5ySbqc at 16:50. Is there nothing that's not on the web these days!

[@deliusmyth5063]

@@KarlDeux Benny could actually speak French. There's a video on YT of him interviewing the actor who dubs him for French TV.

[@advocatingAvian]

I had speech therapy classes as a young child to improve a lisp I have, and I remember being incredibly frustrated at the ways the sounds were being described to me versus what I could and couldn’t pronounce. I remember being advised to move my tongue tip back so far there was nothing in my own mouth to obstruct the air, and being absolutely bewildered that my teacher could hiss just fine “like that”. I eventually improved just by practice, playing a card game where you had to hiss like a snake to score points. Regardless, I feel a lot more vindicated for how I felt during that class after this video - it certainly had a Lot to do with my front teeth, which were nowhere to be found at the time. Ha!

[@klaxoncow]

I remember, when I was working in Germany many years back, having a conversation about this "important consonant" with my German boss. How, as she drove us to a meeting, I was repeating words like "house" and "house", or "use" and "use", in both their noun and verb forms, giving example that we might "house the homeless" with a Z, but we "live in a house" with an S. And, nope, she just couldn't hear it. So I had to keep repeating it, slower and slower, in the hopes that she could distinguish the "Z" sound from the "S" sound, and understand that, no, we English speakers really are indicating the noun from the verb, if only you can quickly pick up that subtle distinction in sound as it zooms past you. And you can express the difference, if you can wrap your tongue around the variants of the "S" family. And, yes, it's not like German education of the English language is lacking. Only second to the Russians, they arguably do it vastly better than we actual native English speakers ever did. Sadly. But it was still a sticking point... which felt very Python-esque, as there I was saying "house, house, house" or "use, use, use" over and over in this car, in the hopes that my German boss might just catch the distinction, if I could only say it slowly and exaggerate it enough to be heard clearly. Never really happened. We reached the destination and the topic changed.

[@enkor9591]

Germans have final devoicing.

[@barbararowley6077]

I went through speech therapy as a child, because of my s’s. Because I have gaps between my teeth, I would get quite a prominent lisp. Quite honestly, this video has a clearer explanation of what’s going on, and better strategies to get around the physical issue than the therapist ever did, so a big thank you!

[@MaoRatto]

To me, it should be required to show and describe the sounds themselves and know exactly what's going on rather than " FIX IT! "

[@patrickf.4440]

I remember, twenty-five years ago, reading the Hobbit to my children (before the movies came out) and reading aloud the words spoken by Gollum [oops, I originally said "Golem"] ("my preciousss") and how they got into "Gollum" speak for a while. Did enough 'S' sounds for a lifetime. Yes, the 'S' is preciousss!

[@thatotherted3555]

This is totally a tangent but I've never understood why some people mix up "Gollum" and "golem". I say the first one like "solemn" and the second with the vowels of "totem", and I'm pretty sure etymology is on my side in both cases.

[@ASB-is-AOK]

You're correct ​@@thatotherted3555 . The Lord of the Rings character is Gollum, GAH-Lumm. The creature from Jewish folklore is Golem, Go-Lemm.

[@patrickf.4440]

Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I got lazy and tired and should have checked.. sorry.

[@carolinejames7257]

​@@ASB-is-AOKExcept for Brits, and Aussies like myself, and other non-Americans it's GOLL-um, but otherwise I agree. The two are distinctly different. 😉

[@japanpanda2179]

@@thatotherted3555 Huh, well today I learned! I'd always pronounced them both as rhyming with "solemn".

[@DonTornado]

14:05 Ok this makes sense now. I was listening to a cover of a song called Cinnamon and Clove by a Japanese singer named Ichiko Hashimoto, and it kind of sounded like she was lisping. I’m not really familiar with her music, but this would explain why she pronounced certain words the way that she did. Thanks.

[@kilianhekhuis]

Due to profound hearing loss, I can't hear frequencies over 1500 Hz. I completely rely on the cues these sibilants impress on the following vowels. Yet my brain still thinks it can "hear" them in speech. But when Dr. Lindsey pronounces them in isolation, there's only silence for me. Brains are weird 😄.

[@zoey12323]

As a speech-language pathologist, I appreciated the Peachie Speechie cameo😆 Absolutely love your videos!

[@lucyj8204]

When I had a brace as a teenager, my "s" moved because of the new obstacle. Later, the brace was removed, and I had a lisp while I adjusted to the obstacle change.

[@Mr.Nichan]

14:34 You can can also hear that "ashita" sounds almost like [aθθа]. (I didn't feel like trying more precise IPA, so just said "almost".)

[@vyt2622]

I am now trying to figure out how I naturally/automatically make an s sound. It might explain why I was identified as having a slight lisp in Lithuania after growing up (and not being labeled as lisping) in the US.

[@danielhale1]

This is madness. I didn't expect to be interested at all in linguistic videos, but ever since the one on vocal fry, here I am.

[@TioDeive]

Dr Lindsey is just brilliant. Thank you.

[@Hermanubis1]

He is not. He presents English as if it is just a choice and the language can be whatever it wants to be. He is a complete descriptivist extremist.

[@__--__]

4:03 I found one! something like "by my hands" → "by my hand" You can hear that "hands" gets reduced to "hand" in this song Bill Withers - Grandma's Hands I was struggling a lot with trying to transcribe the song because "grandma's hands" is in the lyrics, he clearly says "grandma's hand" (except the first line) And this is definitely a process, because I can imagine phrases like "by the hand of god" started off plural, since god has hands, not hand

[@BFDT-4]

Another issue is the voiced/voiceless versions of these sounds. The placement can almost be the same, but the sound differs greatly when the voice is employed versus when the sound is just the sibilant noise of the air rushing through. Spanish speakers in South America do not use the /ð/, /z/, or /ʒ/ and instead use /θ/, /s/ and /ʃ/ for both, and have great difficulty switching on the voice in these cases, since in Spanish they are always voiceless, and sometimes even muted. So, while this was a great video, we need to show those voice/voiceless distinctions, too! :D

[@artugert]

I was thinking the same thing. Needs more voiced examples.

[@oliviamayumi]

fascinating as always! i'm a native speaker of brazilian portuguese and for the first seconds of this video i thought for sure it would be a th! we also use -s for plurals and though brazilian speakers often struggle with words ending in consonants (often pronouncing "it" as "itty" or "lab" as "labby" for instance), s is not one of them. but the th seems to be a bigger struggle - so much so that i find myself willfully mispronouncing it in certain instances to avoid seeming pretentious 😅

[@1oolabob]

I'm a native of California living in Chicago for the past 35 years. The first difference I noticed in the common Chicago accent is the "th" sound being completely left out of all speech, often replaced by a "d" sound, or when that's impractical, with a plain "t" sound, and in "going to da te-ater". The second remarkable feature of a Chicago accent is the final-s sound being lengthened, sometimes to a ridiculous degree--"dat's jusst how it issss"--and sometimes without an "s" being at the end of a word at all. For instance, there's a well-known chain of grocery stores here called Jewel. Chicago speakers often call it Jewelss or even Jewelsess.

[@carlosrabino5125]

Hello! The Spanish example is regional to Spain. I am from South America and we do not pronounce the “s” as the example.

[@Maffoo]

Would love to see a teeth vs lip survey. Never knew lip S was a thing

[@LittleNala]

Doing some Japanese language evening classes, one of the first things we learnt was not to pronounce the final 'u' after 'desu'! But after going there many times, I learnt that actually, some little old ladies say 'de-su', and in stylised (anime, for example), or very formal speech, it is actively emphasised - 'de-SU'. But this was best part of 20 years ago - things may have completely changed by now.

[@lamudri]

Still sounds right to me.

[@interneda98]

Yes and I actually prefer pronouncing it

[@innertuber4049]

I am one of those people who doesn't close their teeth. I always just thought my problem was that my tongue was a little too far forward, but putting it back only ever served to make my s's sound more like sh. Thank you for going so in detail about what's going on in my mouth! I was finally able to make a normal s sound!

[@w.reidripley1968]

Exactly. S > tongue farthest forward behind teeth, has a whistling sub-note. SH > tongue tip back a little, still having that little whistle. Russian Sh -- one letter in Cyrillic, looks like a Roman numeral III -- carries it even farther, the tongue tip drawn to practically the middle of the mouth, producing not a whistling but a mushing sort of sound by this difference.

[@alyanahzoe]

@@w.reidripley1968 친구, 이 소리들 사이의 발음은 다릅니다. 몰라요.

[@alexismiller2349]

It was pointed out to me at 17 that I made a half-lisp sound with my mouth and it has bothered me for a long time, this helps me see much better what is going on, thank you

[@stefansoder6903]

I'm Swedish and my surname starts with an "s" but many English natives confuse it with "f" when I speak on the phone. I now realise it's because I pronounce it too soft.

[@loopbraider]

I doubt it, I'm a native English speaker who knows some Swedish (my mother was Swedish), and I don't think the Swedish /s/ is any softer than the English one. When I took phonetics in college (I have a BA in linguistics) the phonetics professor told us that telephones are so crude that there is truly no accoustic difference in output between [f] and [s] when it is heard through a phone connection. According to him the accoustics are identical. He said that we only IMAGINE that we hear which one is which because the context gives us a clue. If your surname is not one that is already familiar to native English speakers they would have no way of knowing whether you are saying S or F over the phone, and it might be random which sound they assume they are hearing. But I suppose it's possible that saying it extra loud might help (?) - on the phone, that is. I doubt you are saying S too softly at the beginning of a word. The examples he gives where L2 speakers may have problems were all at the ends of words or syllables. - oh, or if the native language was one with fewer s-type fricatives, so the sound can spread over a wider range. Swedish has even more "sh"-ish fricatives than English, with the tj and sk sounds as well as regular 's'. So regular /s/ keeps its place separately very well in Swedish, way at the front of the mouth, like English.

[@stefansoder6903]

@@loopbraider Very interesting! Thank you.

[@smorrow]

@@loopbraider Soder deserves to be a known name for the "Russians are the scariest white people" bit alone

[@KilianMuster]

In Japanese there's the added complication that the language is syllable based, so they don't have single consonants except for 'n'. So they can pronounce sa, so, se quite well, but 'si' is pronounced 'shi' in the language (this makes way for many funny accidents, like CitiBank sounding yes, you guessed it and a Japanese asking you to "sit down" can have hilarious consequences). Every ending-s will have to be replaced by a syllable with a vowel at the end preferably 'su' with a very weak 'u' sound (which really only exists in that form in the standard Tokyo dialect). On top of that, Japanese don't seem to consider a lisp to be a speech impediment or defect, so some Japanese actually might pronounce every 's' more like a 'th' all the time and yet to Japanese ears this might just sound like any other 's' sound, but to my European ears it's really odd, that nobody would ever correct even children who lisp.

[@VisboerAnton]

"What are you sinking about" wahaha

[@jadziajagoda6187]

I think he really asks, „What are you singing about?”

[@soniasaldarriaga5166]

😂😅👏🤣

[@SurfTheSkyline]

​@@jadziajagoda6187it is supposed to be mishearing "sinking" as "thinking", there is the distinct hardness of a K in there.

[@skayt35]

In aeronautics, saying /s/ instead of /θ/ is considered best practice: 3,000 ft is pronounced "/s/ree thousand feet" instead of "/θ/ree tousand feet". This is because the /θ/ sound isn't recognisable with the traditionally bad radio quality in the noisy environment of most cockpits. The /s/ pronunciation is intended to better identify words and avoid misunderstandings.

[@jangelbrich7056]

Typical for Germans, mixing up th with s. He asked "what are You thinking about", because he misunderstood the "we are sinking" for "we are thinking"

[@portalwalker_]

11:45 Throwback to English classes when mentally preparing to pronounth an upcoming "th" and converting any "s" to "th" in the proceth. Ithn't that right?

[@nimzodragonlord]

Woah I've always wondered why my S's whistle. When you showed the diagram at 16:45, I realized that I've always pronounced my S's with my lower jaw relaxed and my tongue resting right beneath my top row of teeth. Lo and behold, when I closed my teeth and made an S sound, the whistle disappeared.

[@fugithegreat]

My S's have become more whistled lately because my two front teeth have developed a small gap in recent years. My tongue is shooting that jet of air right through the gap.

[@BBP_BKK]

@@fugithegreat You have Willem Dafoe's S sound. I like his S so much. 😆

[@Pixietoria]

@@fugithegreatSame. Occasionally it comes out as such a clean whistle it takes me by surprise. Happens more and more the older and gappier my teeth get. I also find it easier to intentionally whistle with my tongue as opposed to my lips. Do you find that? I can whistle both ways but find it way less effort with my tongue. Sharper and louder though… which might not sound as pleasant I guess. 😂

[@darynvoss7883]

Thanks for this interesting video. Not sure whether you take requests but if you think it is an interesting topic perhaps you could do a video on the peculiar length of the word "gone" compared to words with which it nominally rhymes such as "con" or "don".