How to Pronounce the Word THEM American English

Where did you get those flowers?
I got them at the farmer’s market.

Did you notice how I pronounced the word ‘them’?
I dropped the TH entirely. ‘Em, ‘em. This

is great news for people who have a hard time
with the TH. In this American English pronunciation

video, I’m going to go over the pronunciation
of the word ‘them’ in conversation.

There are lots of words in American English
that will sound different when they’re part

of a sentence than they do on their own. ‘Them’
is one of these words. The word ‘them’ on

its own is pronounced with the voiced TH,
th, th, tongue tip just through the teeth,

the-, the ‘eh’ as in ‘bed’ vowel. So the jaw
will have to drop quite a bit for that: the-

the-. And finally, the M consonant. Them,
mm, mm, mm. Lips come together to make that

sound. Them. But, as part of a sentence, the
vowel will reduce to the schwa. Them, them.

All of a sudden, the word is very short, them,
and very flat—them, them—compared to before:

them, them. But, it can reduce even further.
We can drop the TH and have just ‘em, ‘em,

‘em. The schwa and the M sound. As always,
when you reduce a word, you have to link it

to the words around, so let’s look at some
example sentences.

I’ll take them with me. Take ‘em, take ‘em.
So, the K sound is linking right up to that

schwa. Take ‘em, take ‘em. I’ll take them
with me. I’ll get them later. Get ‘em, get

‘em. Do you notice that the T here is not
a true T? It’s a flap T. Why? Because when

we connect the schwa-M sound, the T now comes
between two vowels. Get ‘em, get ‘em. I’ll

get ‘em later. I gave them to you last night.
Gave ‘em, gave ‘em, gave ‘em. Again, no break

between the V and the schwa. Gave ‘em. I gave
them to you last night. You can have them.

Have ‘em, have ‘em, have ‘em. You can have
them. We can buy them later. Buy ‘em, buy

‘em, buy ‘em. We can buy them later.

Reducing a word and linking it to the words
around is a great opportunity to smooth out

your speech and sound more American. So don’t
be afraid to pronounce ‘them’ this way. That’s

it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.

Don’t stop there. Have fun with my real-life
English videos. Or get more comfortable with

the IPA in this play list. Learn about the
online courses I offer, or check out my latest

video.