The key to exercise solutions in chapter 5.1 - Bright ideas? for the textbook Speakout Upper-Intermediate - Students' Book with authors Frances Eales and Steve Oakes from Pearson Education
Question
Look at sentences 1-3. Circlethe where it is pronounced /ðə/ and underline it where it id pronounced /ði:/. Then listen and check. What is the rule?
Listen to the pronunciation. What sound is used to link the and the following vowel? Listen and repeat.
Answer
a)
The interesting thing is that many of the people who hate it are the ones who watch it.
The automobile has done less well since the economic crisis.
Those who voted for the car mentioned the harm it does to the environment as the biggest problem.
We tend to use /ðə/ before consonants and /ði:/ before vowels.