How to pronounce "Months" and "Clothes" [movements of mouth and tongue]

A

angelsp

Member
Chinese
month /mʌn θ/ months /mʌn θs/

How should we pronounce when it is plura, do you quick pronounce /θ/ and /s/ or just pronounce /s/ and ignore /θ/

I know we need to stick our tongue out of our mouth when we make /θ/ sound, when say months, do we still need to stick out our tongue and quick withdraw back and make sound /s/ immediately to finish?
Or should we just make the sound like /mʌn s/

Same question applies to the word clothes, /kləʊðz/ how to pronounce /ðz/ together.

Thank you for help.
 
    • As I understand it, angelsp is asking for a description of the mechanics of pronouncing the combined sounds th + s. That is, angel is asking how you move your mouth and tongue.

    There may be another thread on this, but the only one I found is about the pronunciation of th alone. It doesn't tell how to follow it with an s sound:. In which way do you pronounce θ and ð?

    This is a related discussion, but it doesn't deal with s after an aspirated t.
    How to pronounce "s" after "t" and "d"

    Unfortunately, I am poor at analyzing and describing pronunciation. I hope that someone with those skills will help here.

    Added: Another relevant thread: Pronunciation: th-, -th, -thes
    It is closer to the subject. However it still does not fully answer the question of how the sounds are made.
     
    Last edited:
    angelsp said:
    How should we pronounce when it is plura, do you quick pronounce /θ/ and /s/ or just pronounce /s/ and ignore /θ/

    I know we need to stick our tongue out of our mouth when we make /θ/ sound, when say months, do we still need to stick out our tongue and quick withdraw back and make sound /s/ immediately to finish?
    Or should we just make the sound like /mʌn s/
    Click to expand...

    In general yes, you should pronounce both the /θ/ and the /s/. Put the tongue under your teeth and then withdraw it.

    I know that a lot of speakers from China use a kind of /s/ sound for 'th' as in 'thin', and for them it would be impossible to produce what we described. If you say /mʌn s/, it would sound like Chinese-accented English.
     
    You can simply say "munts" and "cloze", which is really pretty close to how many native speakers say those words when speaking quickly.
     
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