Thuh or thee United States?

Question

When you say the United States in normal speech without any emphasis, do you pronounce the word the as thuh or thee?

I know the rule that you pronounce the word the as thuh before words that begin with a consonant sound and thee before ones that begin with a vowel sound and that it's analogous to the usage of a and an. Here, clearly, the word united begins with the consonant sound /j/, but for some reason I usually hear it pronounced as thee United States. Is this some kind of an exception to the rule or do I have something wrong with my hearing?

How about the following?
The United Kingdom?
The United Nations?
The United Federation of Planets?

Thank you for your responses in advance.

Robsterhews · Accepted Answer

Even Obama pronounces "the" both ways before saying "United States of America."

Robert

Mr. Wookiee · Answer

Thanks for the reply. So apparently I wasn't just hearing things.

I was, however, looking for a little bit deeper analysis. I was thinking that maybe this pronunciation has something to do with the phenomenon that the word the is pronounced as thee when you want to emphasize the following noun. For example: "I am THEE number one fan of [some random celebrity]." And that the United States' uniqueness has something to do with the irregular pronunciation even when the word the isn't stressed. But again, this is just a crappy theory by a non-native speaker, so I'd really like to have some clarification to this question.

CalifJim · Answer

There's nothing wrong with your hearing.

To articulate thuh followed by /j/ (the "standard rule" form), you have to raise your tongue, eventually, to the /i:/ position. ( /j/ is simply the glide form of /i:/. )

You may do it sooner, or you may do it later, but you're going to do it at some point.
If you do it sooner, you have thee /j/. If you do it later, you have thuh /j/.

So when the speaker anticipates the approaching /j/, his thuh becomes a thee. Not all speakers anticipate the following sound the same way. The individual speaker and the speed of his speech both affect the quickness of this anticipation. That's why sometimes you seem to be hearing one and sometimes another of these two variants of "the" before /j/. The same effect should be more or less noticeable in "the yeast", "the yacht", "the yellow one", and "the European" as well -- not just cases like "the union".
___________

Unfortunately, there is no analogous case for the /w/ glide. But -- if you like fantasy-- supposing the definite article in English were thoo rather than the, the same phenomenon would happen for words that begin with /w/. ( /w/ is simply the glide form of /u:/. )

You would have thuh car, thuh bed, thoo artist, thoo elephant, etc., but before the /w/ you'd have both thuh and thoo: thuh when the speaker is slow to approach the /w/; thoo when the speaker anticipates the /w/ with /u:/. You would have both thuh world and thoo world, both thuh weather and thoo weather.

Please ignore this fantasy section if it means nothing to you or confuses you!

___________

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

Mr. WookieeI was thinking that maybe this pronunciation has something to do with the phenomenon that the word the is pronounced as thee when you want to emphasize the following noun. For example: "I am THEE number one fan of ...

No. This is a completely different phenomenon based on meaning, not phonetics. See my remarks above.

CJ

Mr. Wookiee · Answer

Thank you very much! That was just the kind of an analysis I was looking for. <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

CalifJim · Answer

You're welcome!

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

The normal pronunciation is thuh, however, when you want to emphasize the word, you pronounce it thee.

Vorpar · Answer

Not everyone uses "thee" for emphasis. In California, I almost never hear "thee", and I don't ever pronounce it that way.

Anonymous · Answer

This whole topic of "thuh" vs "thee", as well as "uh" vs "ay" (for "a") is a real pain point for me.

Use "thuh" when the word following it has the sound of a consonant. (Thuh door, thuh zebra). Use "thee" when the following word has the sound of a vowel (thee other, thee American). This is not only proper English, it's also very practical.
If we use the short form of "the" (thuh) before a vowel sound, as in "thuh other", we actually have to break up the two words with a short pause between them (thuh-other), otherwise it would sound like we're saying "thuther" Using the proper long form makes pronunciation flow better, so it becomes "theeother"

But what about preceding "United States" as mentioned before? Even though "United" begins with a vowel, it's actually pronounced as "Yoo-nited", and since Y is not technically a vowel, the short form ("thuh United States") is proper. But the "Y" sound in the word "United" is really a diphthong, more like "eeyoo", so no one should fault you for saying it with the long "thee" sound either.

For the word "a", it is always the short form before any consonant sound, such as "uh jacket, uh towel, uh yoo-nited states citizen". Preceding any vowel sound, we use the word "an" (an apple, another).

What about using the long form of "the" and "a" ("thee" and "ay") for emphasis? A much overused and misunderstood rule of grammar.

If you want to use the long form of "the" for emphasis, it should be used only when referring to something that is totally unique ("Thuh golden rule is thee universal truth"). Otherwise , using "thee" in front of any noun becomes nothing more than an affectation.

Using the long for of "a" ("ay") has no real place in grammar except in very rare occasions. Sometimes if we need to emphasize a complete lack of uniqueness, where "a" really means "any", the long sound can be used. For example: A man goes to his doctor with "ay" disease"; this really emphasizes that what disease he has really doesn't matter. However, how many times do we hear our local broadcasters overuse these so-called emphasis rules? ("Ay new twist in thee murder trial').

Thanks for indulging me; here endeth the rant.
Kelly Eshpeter

Anonymous · Answer

How to Pronounce the

In this video I am going to teach you how to pronounce one of the common articles in English language.

Normally, we pronounce the with a short sound (like "thuh"). But when the comes before a vowel sound, we pronounce it as a long "thee".

Take a look at this

The end (thee)

The apple (Apple)

The words Apple and End start with Vowel sound. Therefore the pronunciation is Long theee.

Let me tell you a few rules related with the pronunciation.

vowel sound	Write	say
a	the apple	thee apple
e	the egg	thee egg
i	the ice-cream	thee ice-cream
o	the orange	thee orange
u	the ugli fruit	thee ugli fruit

Let’s take a few mixed examples:

The…….apple but

The(tha) big apple.

Another one

The(theee)…..other day but

The day.

It is important to understand that it is what we say that matters, not what we write.

It is the sound that matters, not the letter used in writing a word. So we use a long "thee" before a vowel sound, not necessarily before a vowel.

Look at these cases:

we write	With	we say	because
*the house*	consonant h	thuh house	consonant sound
*the hour*	consonant h	thee our	vowel sound
*the university*	vowel u	thuh youniversity	consonant sound
*the umbrella*	vowel u	thee umbrella	vowel sound

https://youtu.be/u9BS8N4vYPA -- our channel link.

This is the(thee) end of the(tha) film.

The(Tha) traffic is terrible in the(thee) afternoon.

The employees are at the meeting.

You're the only person who knows the truth.

I don't have the answer to the question.

I hope now you don't have any confusion with the pronunciation.

Thuh or thee United States?

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