Minimal Pair List Consonants /ð/ versus /r/, 17 pairs

The /ð/ sound is spelled with <th> or <the>. The /r/ sound is spelled with <r> or <rr>. Notice how the homograph row makes pairs with though and thou .

This is a contrast between a dental fricative and a continuant which has several allophones. They are both voiced and fairly close together in the mouth, but the contrast does not cause problems.

The contrast only occurs initially or medially, and , since /r/ is a common sound while /ð is rare, the mean density value is low at 0.2%. The list makes 16 semantic distinctions, a loading of 94%.

 	
tether terror 
  tethers terrors 
that rat 
thee re 
their rare 
then Rennes 
then wren
there rare
they Ray 
thine Rhine 
though roe 
though row
those rose 
thou row 
thy rye 
thy wry
Worthing whirring

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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.