pronunciation of "the" article
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The universe
The United States Why "the" is pronounced differently in these two cases in spite of "universe" and "United" begins with the same sound ? |
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| I would pronounce it the same way in each case. |
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The is pronounced differntly whether it's before a vowel or a consonant.
For instance, /the/ end and /the/ book. the first /the/ is pronounced like /thee/. That's what I learnt in Canada in my English class. Natives would tell you more. |
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| The "u" sound in universe and United States is a consonant "u" sound, so the would be pronounced as /th@/ with the schwa. But if you were saying "the umbrella," it would be pronounced like /thee/ |
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<<Why "the" is pronounced differently in these two cases in spite of "universe" and
"United" begins with the same sound ? >>
There is no difference. |
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I know the rule mentioned by IloveEnglish and Ryan. I only thought that the case
I asked about is an exception to the rule. Evidently I must have got it wrong.
Thank you very much for your answers. |
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To Ryan
what is the pronuciation of /@/ in /th@/ ? by @, do you mean the /D bar/ ? |
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You're right Zi, it looks not correctly.
I know only "the" as (using Antimoon's ASCII Phonetic Alphabet): [TH..] - before a word beginning with consonant - [..] pronounced like in the word "away" or "obey" (at the beginning) [THi:] - before a word beginning with vowel - [i:] pronounced like in the word "see" |
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| I don't think that vowel rule is correct. I only pronounce the as 'the' when I am emphasising something. |
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| Sorry: I meant to say that I only pronounce 'the' as 'thee' for emphasis. |
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It looks like we may pronounce "the" as:
[TH..] - usually before a consonant [THi] - before a vowel [THi:] - when we are emphasizing it (from "Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners") |