Take the random sentence "Start with the basics." Would you pronounce both "th" sounds separately or link them essentially saying "withe". Being a non native speaker I find pronouncing both difficult without disrupting the "flow of speech" which is often stated as being very important when speaking english.
2 Answers
I think it depends on the region whether or not someone will say both "th" sounds or not. I'm American and from the Pacific Northwest, and I tend to merge the two words into sounding like this:
Start wi-thuh basics.
As with most languages (I'm sure), people are lazy, and sounds will tend to mesh together if they're similar enough. But as I said, it probably depends on who you ask whether or not those words are said separately or not.
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1Other dialects might say something more like "wit/wid-the" or "wi'-the" (indicating a glottal stop) as well. Aug 8, 2017 at 18:13
It's just one sound, unless you are speaking really slowly.
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1I'd put it the other way round; it's a long consonant, unless I'm speaking very quickly. What it isn't is two separate consonant sounds. Jan 3 at 18:54
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