A similar process occurs in Brazilian Portuguese. EFL learners tend to say [braˈzɪʊ] instead of [brəˈzɪl], as we don't have the dark "l' in our language (except for some dialects in the countryside). I'm a big fan of your channel, Rachel! Congratulations!
+Carina Fragozo For me it's sort of easy to make the dark L sound because my grandmother used to say some words, like "sal" and "cal" with the dark L sound LOL She was brazilian, but her parents were portuguese, that's why she had a little bit of a portuguese (from Portugal) accent =D
+Carina Fragozo Hi Carina, you around here, awesome! (I also follow your channel) Rachel is really fantastic. I'm a big fan too. My pronounce is a lot better because of her.
Nobody ever told me there were two L pronunciations ;_; Until you mentioned them in a video. I was like, wait what?! Now I'll have to relearn all the words that have a dark L. xD Thank you! You are a very good teacher!
This video is amazing! I am Japanese, and we don't have the dark L sound. I'm always struggling to pronounce it, but finally I got something. Thank you very much!
I’m from Shanghai, and we have the dark l sound in Shanghai dialect that stands for the oh sound in Mandarin, so my brain spontaneously treats both sounds as the same thing since I’m constantly switching back and forth. I have to force my brain to differentiate the dark l from the oh sound when I’m listening to English. I’m glad that you addressed this particular topic. I feel more comfortable to pronounce these two sounds now. Thank you!
Hi Rachel, I find the dark 'L' to be one of the hardest sounds in American English, when I was training to reduce my accent, I felt the need to accentuate the 'L' sound by lifting the tip of my tongue to the alveolar ridge area of the mouth. Today, my dark 'L' is comprised of two movements: First, the back of the tongue pulls back, secondly, the tip of the tongue slightly lifts to mimic the regular 'L' sound, if I don't use that sequence, it makes me feel like I'm not pronouncing the word correctly, unless I'm speaking super fast, then there's no time to lift the tip of the tongue. What a pesky little sound!
This video reminds a situation a lived in the U.S. when I was told to look for a person called "Beo" (an African name pronounced like bɪoʊ) and it sounded like "Bill" (bɪl) to me. So I asked for Bill to everybody, but no one could find him. After a couple of minutes they realized that the name was actually Beo and not Bill, and I found him. Thanks for your videos, Rachel!
Hi Rachel, you made me realized something really important with this video, we truly substitute new sounds with known sounds from our native language. so my question is, can you make a video of the basics or common sounds in the English that we have to get familiar with. so that when we hear them we can actually repeat them??
I like this kind of explanation for pronunciation of words. I also took many types of explanation by different coaches and/or instructors worldwide thru U-Tube videos. I appreciated my Japlish improvement getting closer to Native speakers.
And here I was practicing "L" sound vocalization for London cockney accent. In cockney accent they do the opposite- replace dark L with "w" or "ou" sound. Vietnamese and Brasilians should have no problem with their "L" in London.
I think basically we have “ fe-u” Vietnamese would speak “ feuw”, English say “ feul” as FELL, so the difference is in between of the end of articulation lips “w” or tip of the tongue “l”.
Same thing occurs in Bulgarian. Younger people (born after 1990 or so) say a "w" sound instead of a dark l, because the dark l recently disappeared from the language, but nobody is aware of that, even those who speak with a dark l don't notice it when someone substitutes w for l
But the Bulgarian dark L is pronounced by moving the tip of your tongue behind your upper front teeth. It sounds dark only because you make it really thin and spiky. So it’s quite different than the American dark L, and this makes it even more difficult for Bulgarians to pronounce it the right way.
So clear. I've seen some instructors tell students to say oh instead as a tip. This comparison was amazing and easy to understand. I'm a big fan of yours! Thanks a lot for great lessons!
Hi Rachel, I'm your very poor Fan. when I saw and hear your channel then I try as you. But I can't but trying to pronounce as you as a American.what a excellent pronunciation of yours. I'm trying from Bangladesh to be like you. Thanks a lot. God bless you.
Rache! This is exactly what I needed to learn at this point of my progress. Thank you very much! Now I see my problem and can fix it with practice. People, ball, Rachel......People, ball, Rachel......People, ball, Rachel......People, ball, Rachel......
The British dark L is a vocalised L. That means the L has become a vowel. The dark L is in 3 forms: 1. "a schwa followed by a /u/", as in "vowel", "mail"; 2. a /u/, as in "bull"; or 3. a /o/, as in "doll". (For 2 & 3, the vocalised dark L is turned into a vowel similar to the preceding vowel, usually pronounced without lip rounding.) For the dark L, the tongue tip doesn't touch the alveolar ridge. If it does, it is not a dark L but a light L. For the light L, the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge.
Wow Rachel, fantastic. I think us, brazilians in general, really have a hard time to pronounce the dark L. Thank you so much! 3 words: call, fail, bail.
My mother language is Mandarin. There is no OH sound in Mandarin. OU in Mandarin is the same as the Dark L in English. I did take some time to practice the OH sound but I found what I made sounded more like U or W rather than OH. Finally, I gave up and have to substitute OH with the Dark L when I speak English.
Dark L with OH is not that corect but is a great substitution. As I Know people in South Vietnam do the same for Foreign words with L ending. Thank you Rachel!!
dark l and light l sound has the same starting place in IPA diagram. They begin at the alveolar or the high and front of your mouse and but dark l ends in the low and back of your mouse as described in the video :)
I finally got that sound ! So difficult! Thank you for the lesson.
8 лет назад
I remember when you said that in a podcast for English Experts. It was great. You have no idea (you actually do haha) how many people in Brazil also make this substitution. This video couldn't be more helpful. :)
" Bowl" is the perfect word to know the difference between the dark L and OH sound. OW is OH and L is the dark L. Look at yourself in the mirror. Your lip should be rounded when you pronounce the OW, whereas your lip should be relaxed when you pronounce the L in the end.
Another great video!!! Haha, Rachel's English is now my only source of english pronunciation input aside from American TV shows and movies and of course RU-vid videos. I love American English and it's my goal to achieve perfect american-like pronunciation. I won't settle for less. With your help it seems attainable. Thanks, Rachel. :)
to make it correctly, you need to press the FLAT FRONT PART of your tounge against the roof of your mouth. So as the tip of your tounge touches the backside teeth while your front part of your tounge is flat. You don't just use your toungue tip to make the dark L. You need to use more part of your front toungue so the dark L comes out correctly. Don't focus on the sound coming in the back of the mouth because it's irrelevant, if you well-position your toungue to make the sound then the sound in the back of your mouth will come out correctly
Hi, Rachel. Can you make a video showing how to pronunce sentences using words ending in the Dark L followed by words starting in a vowel, like "I need to sell it" Thank you
+Ana Luisa Lucas T is right about linking the Dark L to the following word - however, don't change it to a Light L, it should stay a Dark L. This is a great suggestion for a specific linking video - I appreciate the comment!
Rachel you are great ,thank you very much for helping learning American English,,,,I want to say that dark L is unfamiliar to arabs too and difficult, I find it more difficult in words such as: help / Google/ exactly / people/ general / article .
Hi rachel, I think a native italian speaker like me tends to make a different mistake, not changing dark L with OH but just with a light L. We tend to pronounce every letter the same way no matters where it is in the phrase. My three words ending with dark L are: drill bottle google :) Bye
+Angelo De Florio Awesome job on those words - and yes - a lot of people do make the Dark L into Light L, you are not alone. The nice thing about that switch is that it is usually still clear what word you are saying and so it does not create too much confusion! :)
+Rachel's English Ok, but having an awesome pronunciation teacher like you, we must pronounce it the right way ;) By the way, also in Rachel we have a dark L, right?
+Tian Xia I am Chinese too and find saying emaioh much harder than it is to say email. Perhaps that was due to the fact that I started learning English at a very early age. The common ailment that many of my peers encounter is their tendency to speed up their speech while they are still in their early stages of building their pronunciation skills. Just practise saying words that contains the "L" slowly. Better slow than wrong! 寧慢勿錯!
Dear Rachel I find so confused between the difference of BE and AE with the word containing dark l like "old" "told" "cold" the way American people pronounce is hard to mimic. I would be very grateful if you can help me with it. Thank you very much, btw I love your method of teaching pronunciation, I major in English at my university but I would say my time I spent on Rachel English improving my pronunciation is much than I spent on my college's time. Now I can see a clear improvement, without your helpful lessons I would be in the middle of nowhere. Keep going, you will always have my back. An admirer from Vietnam, with love :D :D :D
I agree. I've been studying English for more than ten years and still can't get this the proper way all the time. It's a struggle, but improving is always good
Another great video from Rachel channel. I feel so confortable when Im learning english from Rachel channel. I want to buy your book. But, for now our currency is so devalued and the dollar is each more growing.
Thanks for your explanation Rachel. The dark L sound is the last sound I learned how to pronounce properly in english, it took me much more time than the other sounds. The problem I have now is when the dark L sound is between a vowel/diphthong and a consonant, like in "always", "shoulder", "soldier", "help" and "milk". In those words I tend to drop the L sound or turn it into the w/oh sound. Can you help me please?
i found that roll up the tongue makes the L sound more clear,, (correct me if im wrong) about finding the familiar sounds, it brought me such a hard time changing my accent (still bothers me..), cuz even the sounds are possibly the same, it's still not actually the way that native speaker speaks that;; and when u try to fill in a sentence within that word, for tongue that it isn't easy to be continued moving the way that it feels comfortable. It's quite similar to the situation that u r counting down and randomly using both Roman numerals and Arabic numerals, they mean the same, but look different.
I have to record how "L" is pronounced on the street in Hong Kong and let you hear it! =P It is (tense) E - LO here in cantonese intonation, with both syllables stressed.
