I just found a couple of good links with audio for distinguishing between the voiced and voiceless allophones of English ‘th’
Sorry, here are the functional links
Funny, I have never done this kind of “minimal pairs” practice. I am such a believer in content, interesting content. I can listen to the same content over and over, if I like it. I believe that this helps my pronunciation, over time.
But the deliberate repetition and listening to pairs of somewhat similar sounds has never been something that I have been able to do.
I am curious, do others find this kind of pronunciation practice useful. Does it bring about an improvement in pronunciation.
Perhaps I should clarify. I do not recommend ‘practicing’ these differences, just listening to them, no more than a few times at most. I went out and found this for a particular learner having difficulty with this distinction. Anytime I publish something like this, it is simply for those who already have difficulty distinguishing between certain sounds in their speech and who wish to ‘raise their awareness’ of these distinctions, with the eventual goal of improving their pronunciation.
If learners do not have any difficulty with these sounds, are not interested, or do not yet have much experience listening to and reading natural English, then these are not for them and can be ignored. Of course listening to and reading a lot of interesting content is the best way to learn, but I think that, especially for more advanced levels, anything that raises your awareness, as long as you’re interested, is worth trying.