For me the best way to practice the voiceless "th" sound is by practicing with words ending with the voiceless "th". Why do I say that it is the best way? Because I found it very hard to make the voiceless "th" when it is at the end of a word. My favorite example would be the word "depth". Whenever I tried to pronounce the word "depth" I would either end up pronouncing "dep" or "dept".
Can you imagine if you cannot pronounce the voiceless "th" properly? This could lead to some confusion for your listener or to the person you are talking with. Instead of hearing "bath", without the voiceless "th", your listener would hear "bat". Or a "booth" would become a "boot". And how about "death"? Without the voiceless "th" your listener is going to hear "debt". It is a big difference to hear, "His DEATH was a big surprise to all." rather than, "His DEBT was a big surprise to all."
However, do not worry. By practicing with words ending with the voiceless "Th" sound, you will be able to prevent such miscommunication. Hopefully, you have read my post about "How to pronounce the voiceless "th"" and would already know how to use the proper tools to make the sound.
After I learned how to properly place my tongue between my teeth and to feel my tongue touching my lower lip, when I try to make the voiceless "th" sound, I was able to finally pronounce "DEPTH". Although I have to admit that sometimes, I still have to make a conscious effort to pronounce "Depth" and other words ending with the voiceless "th" correctly.
One way you can practice with words ending with the voiceless "th", is to practice with ordinal numbers. These are numbers that tell the order of things in a set, like "first", "second" and so on. So you can practice with "fourth", "fifth", "sixth", "seventh", "eighth", "ninth", and so forth.
Here are other words that you can practice with. These words come from a list of the most common words used in English. If you encounter a word you are not familiar with you can go to http://dictionary.reference.com/ to learn the meaning of the word as well as listen to the correct pronunciation of the word or click on some of the words.
| mouth | forth | myth | |
| month | strength | tooth | sixth |
| faith | length | cloth | |
| health | path | beneath | bath |
| both | worth | smooth | seventh |
| death | youth | fifth | booth |
| north | birth | depth | eighth |
| south | fourth | wealth | warmth |
| growth | breath | worth | twentieth |
| truth | earth | math |
I hope this has been useful for you. I will be making more pronunciation exercises in the future. Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts. Thanks.
