Korean Learners' 'Th' Errors and Why Accuracy Still Counts

The Speak Up London piece on common mistakes by Korean speakers notes the frequent replacement of the 'th' sound. Standard pronunciation references require the tongue to protrude slightly between the teeth for both voiced and voiceless variants, producing a distinct phoneme that separates words such as "think" from "sink." That distinction matters in formal registers where connotation hinges on exact articulation, although informal speech in certain dialects permits limited substitution without loss of meaning.