This Isn't Dis: Meet English's Buzzy TH

You already know the puff-of-breath TH in 'think' is tricky — but there's a second, buzzier TH hiding in incredibly common words like 'this,' 'that,' 'the,' and 'brother.' Since Mandarin has no interdental sound at all, your tongue likely substitutes a quick 'd' or 'z', which is completely understandable but changes how these high-frequency words land on native ears. The trick: put your tongue tip gently between your teeth (or just behind them) and let your voice buzz through the gap — it should feel like a vibrating 'z' but produced further forward than usual. Try this for two minutes: say 'this, that, these, those, brother, mother' slowly, checking with a finger near your throat that you feel the buzz the whole time, not a stop-and-release. Because 'the' and 'this' appear in nearly every sentence, fixing this one sound pays off everywhere, immediately, in how natural your English sounds.