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English Pronunciation: How to Pronounce L and R (video)

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Melanie

English Pronunciation: How to Pronounce L and R (video)

May 14, 2012 by Melanie

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In this video lesson, I explain how to pronounce the /l/ and /r/ consonant sounds at the beginning of a word or syllable! I explain what to do with your lips and tongue to make these sounds.

By the end of this video, you’ll finally be able to pronounce the /l/ and /r/ consonant sounds!

After you have watched this video, make sure you watch Part 2 so you can practice the /l/ and /r/ sounds!

 

 

Transcript:

Hi, everyone! I’m Melanie, and this is an English pronunciation lesson on how to pronounce the letters L and R at the beginning of a word or a syllable.

You need a small mirror so you can make sure that your mouth is doing the same thing as my mouth.

Let’s get started!

1. IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) Symbols
This is the letter l. This is the symbol for the the /l/ consonant sound.

This is the letter r. This is the symbol for the English consonant sound, however most dictionaries and English pronunciation books use this
symbol instead.

2. Continuants
The L and R consonant sounds are continuants. We can continue making these sounds as long as we have air in our lungs. The sound does not change until
we move into a new sound. When L & R occur at the beginning of a word or a syllable, they are always followed by a vowel sound, so the L & R consonant
sounds smoothly move into the vowel sounds.

3. Lips
When I make the /l/ consonant sound, my lips are completely relaxed. My lips are slightly open, but they don’t move and they’re not rounded.

Check your lips in your mirror. Make sure your lips are in the same position as mine.

When I make the /r/ consonant sound, the corners of my lips move in, my lips are rounded, and they stick out a bit.

Check your mirror. Make sure your lips are in the same position as my lips.

If you don’t have the same /r/ sound in your language, it can feel very awkward making this sound. Many of my students tell me is that they
feel silly making this sound. It does not feel natural or comfortable, and they worry that they’ll look funny with their lips sticking out.
It is very important for you to know that you don’t look silly making this sound. You look like you’re speaking English!

4. Tongue
When I make the /l/ sound, the tip of my tongue is pressed against the gum ridge. In your mouth, the gum ridge is the area right behind your top teeth.
You should be able to feel a hard, flat surface right behind your teeth top teeth. That’s where you want to place the tip of your tongue.

There are two ways you can make the /r/ sound.

It’s very important to remember that your tongue does not – DOES NOT! – touch the top of your mouth. That’s very important!

When I make the /r/ sound, I can feel that my tongue is curled up – not all the way back and not touching the top of my mouth. It’s just curled slightly
up, pointing towards the gum ridge.

However, if that is too difficult for you, here is an easier way …

In the back of your mouth, press the back sides of your tongue up against your back top teeth, while keeping the front of your tongue down.

Try both methods and find the one that works best for you.

5. Practice
Practice these sounds for at least 15 mintues every day until they feel as natural and comfortable as sounds in your language. You have to teach your
brain the correct mouth position for these two English sounds.

In the next video, we’ll practice some words, phrases, and sentences with l and r at the beginning of a word or syllable.

I hope you enjoyed this video! Thanks for watching. I’m Melanie from EnglishTeacherMelanie.com. Goodbye everyone!

 

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Filed Under: Blog, Pronunciation Tagged With: consonants, videos

Comments

  1. Huy Nguyen says

    May 29, 2012 at 1:13 am

    Hi Melanie.My name is Huy Nguyen, and I’m a Vietnamese.Your video makes me understand brightly about R voice in English. Thanks a lot. It’s so helpful for me to pronounce this voice. I hope you have more such helpful videos on here. Thank you so much!

    • Melanie says

      May 29, 2012 at 9:50 pm

      Hi, Huy Nguyen!

      It’s nice to meet you! People from Vietnam are so friendly. I am thrilled to hear that this video helped you with the ‘R’ sound! This is one of the most difficult sounds for English learners. Make sure you watch the other video so you can practice the L & R sounds:
      /pronunciation-practice-the-l-and-r-sounds-video/

      All the best to you with your English studies,
      Melanie
      = )

  2. jesus says

    August 11, 2012 at 2:34 am

    Greetings:

    Hello teacher Melanie I’m a student and sometimes Ihave seriuos troubles wtih my pronunciation, I from Mexico, I study english in the school but I can writte well but being honest I can’t read or speak or listen like a native person…

    ASAP: JESUS MUÑOZ RODRIGUEZ

    • Melanie says

      August 13, 2012 at 9:06 pm

      I don’t think you meant to use ‘ASAP,’ Jesus! In English, ‘ASAP’ means ‘as soon as possible.’ I think you meant to say ‘From, Jesus.’

      It’s nice to meet you! Your English is better than you think it is. You just wrote a message to a native speaker!

      = )

  3. Mehdi says

    December 26, 2012 at 2:53 am

    hi dear Melanie. my name is Mehdi, I,m an Afghan student, writing to you from Afghanistan, I have a lot of problems with my pronunciation, whenever I start speaking, my friends hardly understand me, it would be thoughtful of you, if you place more and more tips about pronunciation.
    I thanks a lot for your pronunciation tips they were extremely helpful.

    Wish you a happy Christmas.

    • hamza says

      January 5, 2014 at 8:49 am

      hi teacher melanie first i thanks you for this vedeo and i wish to give us a lesson about phrasal verb hamza from morroco

  4. Michaela says

    December 29, 2012 at 3:59 pm

    Hello dear Melanie,
    I am from Czech Republic, thank you for all the videos and more…, with your help it is much better. Good luck for new year!

  5. shabir ahmad says

    March 2, 2013 at 9:16 am

    hi teacher melanie ! I am Ahmad from afghanistan , thanks a lot for all these video ,its really useful for everyone who want to learn english.

  6. Arzu says

    March 25, 2013 at 3:09 am

    Hello,Melanie..
    My name is Arzu.I am from Azerbaijan.Thank you so much for these lessons…I love English..

  7. Miguel says

    August 21, 2013 at 11:11 am

    Hi Melanie I’m from Argentina thank you very much for the video!

  8. Nilton says

    September 15, 2013 at 6:32 pm

    Dear, Mrs Melaine

    I really enjoyed the lessons how I can pronounce like American accent.
    Right now I’m in England. I just followed the English course from College.
    I heard their accent is very different, and makes me confused sometimes and
    I don’t understand. I could understand American accent because they speak fluently than British accent. American accent is so awesome.

    So here I would give thank you very much for presentation videos.

    Nilton Borges

  9. mostafa says

    October 12, 2013 at 2:41 am

    hi there .This is Mostafa .I’d like to get familiar with some techniques for teaching TOEFL writing course.T write a better essay and to have a good introduction and concluding paragraph .Awaiting your answer .By the way ,I am a teacher myself.

    Best wishes

  10. Luana says

    January 5, 2014 at 6:45 pm

    Hi Melanie ,I’m from Brazil and I’d like to thank you because your post really helped me

  11. Mounir says

    March 20, 2014 at 10:35 am

    Hi Melanie
    Am from morocco and I have slightly problem with some english words and especially with R and L not the pronouncing but not pronounce it them ,for ex :COULD or NORMAL here we can just pronounce it like COD or NOMAL.thx
    Would you please provide us more words like this kind.thx

    • MelanieMelanie says

      March 20, 2014 at 5:18 pm

      Hi, Mounir!

      It’s important to remember that the L is silent in COULD! Don’t say the L. It’s pronounced /kʊd/.

      As for NORMAL, the R sound is actually the ‘vowel r’ sound. It’s O+ɚ, where the /ɚ/ sound is the same as at the end of MOTHER or BROTHER.

      = )

  12. Alo-G says

    June 11, 2014 at 6:24 pm

    I appreciate your great help for people like me that can’t differentiate between R and L sound. Wish I found this kind of help earlier . ALO-G. from Nigeria

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