Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Chan-Seung Lee]

I would like to know the difference of pronounciation between 'with' and 'width'. I can't know the difference between them. Can you help me?

[Lorikeet]

The way I pronounce them, in my variety of American English, has a difference. I don't know about the pronunciation in other varieties of English.

The "th" at the end of "with" is voiceless in my speech. That means the vowel sound is a little shorter.

The "d" in the word "width" is voiced, and makes the vowel a little longer. Also, I make the "d" articulation before adding the "th" at the end. (That is, my tongue goes into "d" position here, but doesn't in the word "with".)

[Jintii]

In my variety of American English (northeastern US), they are different.

With has a voiced th. This has the effect of making the vowel a little longer, too.

Width has a slight stop before the th, and the th is unvoiced.

The Merriam Webster dictionary has a feature that lets you listen to the pronunciation of words. Just look up each word in the dictionary, and click on the loudspeaker: www.m-w.com