Minimal Pair List Consonants /g/ versus /ð/, 20 pairs

The spelling of /g/ is <g> or <gg>. The /ð/ sound is spelled <th> throughout.

This is a contrast between a stop and a fricative, both voiced but well separated in the mouth. It does not cause any problems.

Interesting pairs include:

mugger mother
smugger (meaning more smug ) smother

Since /ð/ is a rare sound, the figure for the mean density is very low at 0.6%. The set makes 17 semantic contrasts, giving a high loading of 85% since many of the /ð/ words are function words which do not inflect.

    
Bergen burthen
digger dither
  diggers dithers
Gael they'll
gale they'll
GATT that
gave they've
gay they
ghee thee
go though
goes those
guy thy
laager lather
  laagers lathers
Largs laths
mugger mother 
  muggers mothers 
smugger smother 
Whig with
wig with

September

John Higgins

John Higgins retired in 2000, having spent the bulk of his career as a British Council English Language Officer working in Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and Yugoslavia and the last fifteen years in lectureships at Bristol University and then running an M.Sc. programme at Stirling University. His main field was EFL, with a special interest in CALL (computer-assisted language learning) in which, together with Tim Johns of Birmingham, he was responsible for important developments in methods and materials. His publications include A Guide to Language Laboratory Material Writing, Universitetesforlaget, 1969, Computers and Language Learning, Collins, 1984, Language Learners and Computers, Longman, 1988, and Computers in English Language Learning, Intellect Press, 1992, together with numerous papers, reviews and pieces of software. He maintains a web page on minimal pairs and homographs for teachers of English pronunciation skills.