u/NumerousPrimary5650

My mother tongue has neither /ð/ nor /θ/. When I listen to a language that has the two sounds, I often struggle with the acoustic difference between /θ/ and /f/, but not with their voiced counterparts, i.e. /v/ and /ð/, which sound less confusable to me for some reason.

Is it just me or is there a deeper reason behind it? Also I've read somewhere that th-fronting occured less often to /ð/ in English dialects, so maybe this is relevant idk

P.S. I also find the two approximant counterparts [ʋ] and [ð̞] to be even easier to distinguish. Perhaps voicing plays a role idk