"a" and "the" pronounced differently

[powerlerner]

hi there,

as far as I know, u pronounce "the" like "thee" whenever there is a vowel in front of the next word... but somehow I realized many Americans sometimes use the "thee"-version also in front of other words... am I right or is that total nonsense?

and the other thing is...people sometimes pronounce the indefinite article "a" like "uh" and sometimes like "a"...is that just an accent-thing or is there any rule/idea behind it?

thank you very much

PL

[Tdol]

The 'thee' version can be used for emphasis before consonants. Again 'uh' is the unstressed form when it is not imortant and 'a' gives emphasis to the number.

[powerlerner]

thank you!
so uhm...for example, if I say "He is THE big pop star of the 20th century", I could pronounce "THE" like "thee" in order to say he is a really big deal?

[powerlerner]

and I didn't get the rule behind "a" (pronounced like "a") yet... what I guessed is that the "a" pronounced as "a" always refers to "one"...is that wrong? I don't get it yet :( ... can you make some examples plz?

[Barb_D]

Your understanding of "the" as "thee" is correct.

For the "a" as in "bay" - you can use this to emphasize that there was only one of someting.

There were four bananas here yesterday and now there is only one! Did you take "uh" banana?
Yes, but I took "a" (rhymes with "bay") banana, not three!

[powerlerner]

I got it...Thank you so much, I really appreciate it & greetings to Pennsylvania!