English Pronunciation: L Sounds

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English Pronunciation: How to pronounce the -al ending

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Pronouncing -al

The -al ending is different from the word "all." It is a suffix that means "related to" and it is attached to many words.

Rather than pronouncing it with the open A sound in "all," we reduce the A to the simple U in "up." Also, because it is a suffix that changes the form of a word and does not have any extra meaning, we do not stress it.

Pronounce -al as if it were spelled -ul and pronounce it lightly and simply.

Practice for the -al ending

Many words have this suffix. Practice with the word list below. Notice that the words "nation" and "nature" also change in the A sound when the word form changes. Both have a long A sound as nouns and a short A sound as adjectives. Also, in "social" and "partial," the letter I is silent.

Noun	Adjective	Noun	Adjective	More with -al
center	central	act	actual	manual
front	frontal	fact	factual	gradual
nation	national	dentistry	dental	mental
nature	natural	profession	professional	final
politician	political	society	social	total
economy	economical	part	partial	hospital
occupation	occupational	environment	environmental	principal
event	eventual	fate	fatal	animal

* There are exceptions, of course. Words like "canal" that have the stress on the second syllable will usually have a Short A sound. However, these words are very few in number.

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