As a learner of English, have you noticed that native speakers sometimes pronounce the word ‘the’ like ‘thuh’ [/ˈðə/] but sometimes like ‘thee’ [/ˈðiː/]? Well, you may be surprised to know that for most native anglophones, although they know that they pronounce it differently at different times, most of them don’t realise why they change the pronunciation.
The main reason is that the pronunciation changes based on if or not the start of the accompanying noun or adjective has a vowel sound. With a vowel sound, the pronunciation is usually ‘thee’ but with a consonant it is usually ‘thuh’.
When pronouncing ‘the’ as ‘thee’ before a vowel sound, the two vowels are joined together to make a ‘y’ sound as follows…
| Vowel sound | Written | Spoken | Pronounced |
| a | the apple | ‘thee’ apple | thee yapple |
| e | the elephant | ‘thee’ elephant | thee yelephant |
| i | the island | ‘thee’ island | thee yeiland |
| o | the other one | ‘thee’ other one | thee yother one |
| u | the ugly insect | ‘thee’ ugly insect | thee yugly insect |
The above examples are where vowels at the beginning of nouns and adjectives are obviously recognisable. However, remember that 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, where letters considered as vowels are treated like consonants and vice versa:
| Written | With | Spoken | Reason |
| the house | consonant h | ‘thuh’ house | consonant sound |
| the hour | consonant h | ‘thee’ yower | vowel sound |
| the university | vowel u | ‘thuh’ yooniversity | consonant sound |
| the umbrella | vowel u | ‘thee’ yumbrella | vowel sound |
For emphasis (accent)
When we want to stress a particular word, we can use what is called the ’emphatic the’ [thee], whether or not the word begins with a consonant or vowel sound. Here there is often a slight pause between ‘the’ and the following word so there is no ‘joining together’ of the two words in speech. For example:
A: When I was in America, I was given a tour of the [thuh] White House
B: What? The [thee] White House, in Washington D.C.?
A: Yes, amazing, eh?
A: I’m singing at the [thuh] Albert Hall next week!
B: What? The [thee] Albert Hall, in London?
A: Yes, The [thee] Albert Hall! I’m very excited…!
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