Confused in new Arabic Course

[PhoenixRose77]

In the Alphabet 2 lesson I'm confused as to what the letters are supposed to sound like. The audio sounds like a TH sound to me but the options are all writing that sound as DH, which as a native English speaker I'm rather uncertain how that would even sound.

I'm not sure if its the audio being incorrect or the written English equivalent is incorrect, or if I'm way off base and just can't hear it right?

Anyone else having this issue?

[Zia177448]

In English, there are actually two different pronunciations of the letter comination "th". For example, "this" has a different initial sound than "thin". To reflect this, the sound in "this" is transcribed as "dh" ( ذ‎), the sound in "thin" as "th" (ث) (at least the second one is what I'm used to, I haven't reached that point in the duolingo Arabic course yet).

[PhoenixRose77]

Okay, thank you! This makes sense. I hadn't even relized "th" had two different sounds in English, but your examples made this obvious.

[LilHippo1]

dh is like th but with a little less emphasis or power in the sound. I have arab friends who I practice arabic with and they can barely tell the difference

[PhoenixRose77]

Thanks! That makes sense with what Zia177448 said as well.