hi guys and welcome to the clear English
corner
I'm Keenan your personal American
English pronunciation coach in this
lesson we're talking about the dark L
sound this is the L that comes at the
end of words and the end of syllables by
the end of this lesson you'll know all
about how to articulate this sound and
we'll practice the sound together in
words and phrases here on the clear
English corner we're talking about all
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time a new lesson is published okay so
the dark L sound the way a Native
American English speaker articulates L
at the end of words and the end of
syllables is entirely different than how
we articulate that sound at the
beginning of words and syllables for the
light L sound you're taking the front of
your tongue and pressing it gently
against the back of your top teeth and
then releasing it's a quick press and
release for the dark L sound a native
speaker isn't using the tip of their
tongue at all the motion of the tongue
is all in the back of the tongue for
this sound a native speaker actually
retracts the tongue the back of the
tongue or the root of the tongue towards
the throat like this all all the sound
is actually really different from the
light L where the tongue is quickly
pressing and releasing against the back
top teeth so left light L dark L ol o
the lips cheeks and jaw are completely
relaxed for the dark L sound and the
movement is happening entirely with the
tongue retracting towards the back of
the throat
oh-oh now if this is an
unfamiliar movement for you retracting
the tongue there's a couple things that
you can play around with in order to
help achieve this sound so one thing you
can try is to work from the gag reflex
so the gag reflex is what happens when
you eat something that you really don't
like the taste of or you smell something
that's really offensive to your nose and
you go you gag the motion your tongue
makes when your gag reflex happens is
the same as how it retracts to make the
dark L sound so in both cases the tongue
pulls back towards the throat so you can
kind of play around with the gag reflex
to feel that feel what it feels like for
the tongue to retract back towards the
throat let me clarify I'm not saying you
have to go eat a lot of nasty things or
smell a lot of disgusting smells to get
the gag reflex going you can just fake
it another thing that you can try is to
think of your uvula that's actually one
of my favorite word's
uvula the uvula is that little dangly
thing in the back of your throat so you
can think about trying to aim the back
of your tongue towards your uvula it
gives you something to aim towards so
you're pulling the tongue back towards
the little dangly thing in the back of
your throat all all so let's try this
sound in some words try apple apple and
an apple I ate an apple try people
people a lot of people else
else or else try this or else almost
almost almost there
we're almost there okay good
if you're having trouble getting the
tongue retracted or pulling that tongue
back towards the throat there is an
alternate placement that you can try to
achieve a very similar sound to the dark
L and the placement for this is the same
as the light L you can actually press
the front of your tongue against your
back top teeth oh oh you can even let
the tongue tip come out a bit under the
top teeth like you're making a th sound
Oh Oh either one of those can work now
the difference between articulating this
sound using this placement and the light
L is that you want to be sure that
you're holding the sound here's what I
mean you want to make sure you're not
pressing and releasing so for example
the word people you want to hold that L
sound hold your tongue pressed against
your back top teeth so instead of people
people or you're pressing and releasing
hold the sound
people-people okay here's another
example the word deal hold that L sound
you don't want it to sound like deal
deal no hold the L deal deal the deal
what's the deal
good let's try another one rule rule now
you don't want it to sound like rule
rule we're holding that tongue in the
behind our top front teeth to get that
dark L sound rule the rule what's the
rule good let's try one more hole hole
again not whole whole whole day the
whole day awesome
another thing you want to remember for
the dark L sound is you want to be sure
that there's not an extra vowel sound
sneaking in there in front of the OL
let's go back to the word people a lot
of non-native speakers will pronounce
this word
Pipo Pipo and what's happening is
there's a short e sound sneaking in
right before the dark l peep-bo the way
to get rid of this extra e sound is to
think of smushing the sounds together so
you want to smush the sound right before
the L right into the all sound so P will
keep all the sounds are right next to
each other with nothing sneaking in
between you're going to go straight from
that final P at the end of the first
syllable peep straight into the hole
which is a syllable all on its own
peep hole peep hole alright let's try
another one the word table a lot of
times will be pronounced as table Tabo
with that short e sound sneaking in
there we want to pull that sound out and
think of smashing the book and the OL
right together bull bowl table
table set the table okay another example
the word final final not final we want
to take the moon sound and go straight
into the ol final final we're going
straight from the end to the L and we're
holding that dark L sound also final
that's final
this also works when there's a vowel
sound that comes right before the dark L
so for example the word fail fail not
fail we want to take that X ound out and
go straight from the a - all ale ale
fail fail
can't fail you can't fail another
example while while again we're going
from the I sound the AI diphthong vowel
to the old Isle Isle while while Waialae
while I wait awesome practice so there
you have it that's the scoop on the dark
L sound how to pronounce L at the end of
words and the end of syllables if you're
ready for some more practice with this
sound I have a list of the top 100 dark
L words in American English that you can
grab by clicking here or I have a link
for you in the video description alright
I hope you found the lesson helpful if
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helpful as always thank you so much for
tuning in and I'll see you next time