I am amused at the way we are discussing proper pronunciations in a language we wouldn’t understand using the pronunciations it was formed from. Something that probably applies to all languages, it’s just the one I use, and can speak clearly enough to be easily understood.
Theese are all names of actual bands starting with “Thee”:
Thee Aladdins
Thee Eastsiders
Thee Midniters
Thee Noblemen
Thee Oh Sees
Thee Prophets
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra
Thee Sixpence*
*Later changed their name to Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Great topic! No, I don’t recall being specifically taught to pronounce “the” differently before a vowel or consonant; however, now that it has been called to my attention, I believe I usually do follow the rule described in the OP. As well as sometimes enunciating a long e “thee” for emphasis. 
Ooh. That would be another situation where you might be taught the rule. When teaching a second language, small idiosyncrasies of the language that native speakers inherently pick up are often explicitly taught.
I remember being surprised when a Spanish speaking person wasn’t taught that b has a different sound initially than it does in the middle of a word. That was something stressed pretty early on in my Spanish classes.
Not from what I’ve read about language development. Early on, children engage in hypercorrection, once they pick up on a “rule.” Children who previously said “mice” will start saying “mouses” for a little bit, for example. Or they may try “hice” instead of “houses.”
That said, I believe this stage goes by quickly.
I’ve also observed rules about how to pronounce -ed or -s at the ends of words. I doubt anyone was explicitly taught to match voiced with voiced and unvoiced with unvoiced (and pronounce the e only when preceded by /t/ or /d/), but that is what we do.
Absolutely right! As a mom of four, the hard part is not picking up on the little toddler “hypercorrection” sometimes. I have often, to my chagrin, found myself saying things like “You needed your hair cutted.” :o It’s rather like picking up an accent temporarily if one has a foreign houseguest.
This is not, by definition, hypercorrection, because children do this naturally, as part of the language acquisition process. Hypercorrection is when a speaker has ALREADY acquired language, and then alters it (after it has been fully acquired), because of some explicitly (consciously) imposed perception of “correctness”
A classic example (with grammar) for some people is using the subject pronoun I as an object when it is compounded, (e.g., Could you please give Susan and I some more chocolate?), because one’s parents or teachers berated one for saying Susan and me, regardless of the context.
Again, this is NOT hypercorrection, because the rule itself is normally applicable. Hypercorrection, BY DEFINITION, cannot occur with irregular forms.
¿LALOQUÉEEEEEE?
B is B is B is B is B… any sound gets modified somewhat by its neighbors, but that wouldn’t have to do with position within a word, but within the whole string of phonemes. An initial sound can be modified by the sounds in the previous word. Spanish B never gets modified enough to be a different phoneme, though. Unless your teacher was someone like Antonio Gala, but he didn’t so much speak Spanish as croon to himself in something resembling it.
An example which I would have liked to be able to show to your teacher:
According to his rule, the Bs in brazo and abrazadera are different enough for the difference to be obvious to anyone paying attention. The first one would be like the first b in bombilla, both being initial; the second would be like the second one, both being in the middle. To be able to say that, at the very least he’s mis-splitting the syllables (bra-zo; a-bra-za-de-ra) in order to be able to miss the influence of that -r-, as well as missing the root.
Without reading the thread: I was never* taught *it, but of course I *learned *it, like how we learn most context-dependent-pronunciation rules: by listening and talking as we develop speech between 2 and 5 years of age, subconsciously internalizing patterns standard to our language and dialect.
I do. I say “thuh apple,” “thuh banana,” “thuh end,” “thuh beginning.” I don’t make a distinction whether the next word has a vowel or a consonant. Grew up in Pennsylvania, if that makes a difference.
Interesting. If I force myself to say “thuh apple,” I *have *to insert a little glottal stop, or else pronounce it without any break at all, which sounds (and feels in my mouth) even weirder to me.
I’m guessing that, in your (regional?) dialect, you do indeed insert little glottal stops in “the + vowel” situations.
Uh oh! 
I never paid attention, nor do I pay attention to how other people pronounce “the.”
Voted “other” as there is no such rule. As someone else pointed out, “thee” is often used for emphasis.
Warwickshire, England.
People are using “rule” to mean two different things in this thread.
If you observe a thousand English speakers from many places, you will note that there is indeed a well-defined (though not quite universal) pattern. Some are using the word “rule” to refer to this fact.
There’s two different IPA symbols for Spanish “b.” It’s not quite as neat as saying initial Bs have one sound and medial Bs have the other, but there are technically two (slightly) different sounds for B.
Thank you for pointing this out. It stems from the OP, who presents a phonological rule–something that native speakers inevitably acquire naturally, without explicit instruction–as though it were some kind of a pedagogical rule, which now must be “missing” from school instruction, (as a clear sign of the decline of education), because supposedly Kids-These-Days aren’t “following” it.
I suspect the OP might be referring to the unnatural speech which children must do when they are forced to read out loud–a highly contrived, rarely occurring kind of speech, which is not representative of their normal language, and which is susceptible to the kind of hypercorrection I mentioned above, usually brought about by the bad examples set by adults. It has been happening for ages, though, and is not an indication of the deterioration of modern education.
I was never taught a rule: I tend to say Thee yapple instead of Thuh 'plle. There are several small differences between the way I pronounce words and the way native Australians pronounce words, and this is one of them.
The Queensland eductation department taught us a rule about how to pronouce sofa. “Listen for the r at the end of the word sofa when you supervisor pronounces it”
I was never taught a rule: I tend to say Thee yapple instead of Thuh 'plle. There are several small differences between the way I pronounce words and the way native Australians pronounce words, and this is one of them.
The Queensland eductation department taught us a rule about how to pronouce sofa. “Listen for the r at the end of the word sofa when you supervisor pronounces it”