Pronouncing The Word “The”

Submitted by Judy Hanning on Sat, 2017-04-15 18:00
A caller named Patrick recently called in to the A Way with Words podcast to ask the hosts about the proper pronunciation of the word “The.” Specifically, he wanted to know when the word should be pronounced with a hard E and when it should be pronounced with the schwa sound.

That it should be pronounced with a long e if followed by a vowel. This is a good piece of information that I don’t think many know of.

As a youngster, Patrick was taught to pronounce “The” with a hard e only if it preceded a word that began with a vowel. The hosts said that, though North Americans were taught that rule, it was not correct. “The” should be pronounced with a hard E only when wanting to emphasize the next word.
A Palm Springs, California, listener was taught that when the word the is followed by a vowel, it should be pronounced with a long e, and otherwise with a schwa sound. However, there’s no grammatical basis for such a rule.
~ Grant Barrett

Key Takeaways:

1
The word “the” can be pronounced with either a long “e” or a schwa sound.
2
Some people are taught that “the” should have the long “e” when preceding a word that starts with a vowel, and should be pronounced with a schwa otherwise.
3
However, there is no grammatical rule concerning the pronunciation of the word “the.”
Read the full article here:
https://www.waywordradio.org/pronouncing-the-word-the/