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Consonant Sound L and Dark L

The document summarizes the pronunciation of the phoneme /l/ in English. It discusses how the /l/ sound is produced by pressing the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth. It can be pronounced as a "clear l" when followed by a vowel, like in the words "land" and "elegant," or as a "dark l" when followed by a consonant, which involves raising the back of the tongue. The document provides examples of words containing the /l/ phoneme in different positions and discusses some variations in pronunciation between American and British English.

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Mariel Aguirre
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316 views4 pages

Consonant Sound L and Dark L

The document summarizes the pronunciation of the phoneme /l/ in English. It discusses how the /l/ sound is produced by pressing the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth. It can be pronounced as a "clear l" when followed by a vowel, like in the words "land" and "elegant," or as a "dark l" when followed by a consonant, which involves raising the back of the tongue. The document provides examples of words containing the /l/ phoneme in different positions and discusses some variations in pronunciation between American and British English.

Uploaded by

Mariel Aguirre
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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“l” (alveolar, lateral, voiced)

Spelling: l (late, old, elegant), ll (full, allow)

The phoneme /l/ is pronounced in two different ways depending on the sound that follows
it. When it is followed by a vowel it is called “clear l” and it sounds like a normal Spanish l.
So the /l/ used in land and elegant is exactly the same as that in largo and elegante.

land largo

elegant elegante

BUT How to pronounce the /l/ Sound


The /l/ sound (/l/ Phoneme) is called the “alveolar lateral approximant,” which means that
you put your tongue against your upper teeth and push the air around the sides of your
mouth.

It is made through the mouth and is Voiced, which means you use your vocal chords to
make the sound, and it is defined by the motion of your tongue. It is an approximant, which
is a sound made by creating a narrow space in your mouth through which air flows. In this
case, it’s the space between your tongue and the sides of your mouth.

To produce the l sound, press just the tip of your tongue against the back of your upper
teeth and voice out through your mouth. Sometimes it is helpful to curl the sides of your
tongue upward.
How the l Sound is spelled
The /l/ sound is spelled with the letter ‘l’ or double ‘ll.’

Examples of the l Sound


Here are some words that start with the /l/ phoneme.

 last /lɑːst/
 leave /liːv/
 later /ˈleɪtə/
 laugh /lɑːf/

Here are some words with the /l/ phoneme sound in the middle.

 child /tʆaɪld/
 problem /’prɒbləm/
 always /’ɔːlwəz/
 black /blæk/

And here are some words that end with an l sound.

 people /’piːpəl/
 little /ˈlɪtl/
 national /ˈnæʆənəl/
 control /kənˈtrəʊl/
Now there is another type of l in English, the dark l, which occurs when this phoneme is
followed by a consonant or a pause. In this case, the l is velarized, which means that the
back part of your tongue raises towards the velar region (the back part of the roof of your
mouth). So there are two processes going on: you are saying a clear l and, at the same
time, your tongue raises as if you wanted to say an /ʊ/.

It might sound complicated, but, believe me, it is not. Let’s try.

First say a normal, clear, Spanish /l/ and, at some point, try to say an /ʊ/. You’ll see that the
/l/ becomes different, dark, that is, velarized.

From clear l to dark l

There is a specific symbol in phonetics for the dark l, which is this: [ɫ]. So the word help is
transcribed more accurately as [heɫp] than as [help]. However, the symbol [ɫ] is not usually
provided in dictionary transcriptions. This is because [ɫ] is not a phoneme but an allophone,
so I won’t normally use it in this website, just on a few occasions for didactic purposes.

Now you can say the following words with a more natural accent:

help [heɫp] fall [fɔːɫ] elbow [ˈeɫbəʊ] old


[əʊɫd] ultimate [ˈʌɫtɪmət] alphabet [ˈæɫfəbetgggggggggggg0

More about the /l/.


Let’s now touch on some further points worth knowing about the l.

1. When the l is doubled (as in allow or fall) the sound doesn’t change. And, of course, a
double l never sounds as the consonant used in Spanish to say words like llama or lluvia.

Listen to this example:

below bellow

The pronunciation is different and also the meaning of the word (1. at a lower position. 2.
To shout angrily). However, the /l/ sound is always the same.

2. Affixes can change the type of l, as in this example:

tell (dark) telling (clear)

3. In some accents -the London area, for example- the darkness of the l is so pronounced
that it turns into a sound resembling the /w/. So, help becomes [hewp] and still is
pronounced [stɪw] .

4. In American English the l tends to be always dark, even before vowels. So, given the
extension of this variety of English, you’re likely to hear it quite often.

Here is a very interesting example where you can hear an American speaker (journalist
Rick Kleffel) saying the word language with a dark l and a British speaker (writer Julian
Barnes) using the same word pronounced with a clear l.

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