English Pronunciation L Sounds: Free Online Training with Videos

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500 Common Words: L Sounds

Pronounce an American English L sound by putting your tongue in the "T" position, on the ridge behind the upper teeth. Lightly press the front part of your tongue against ridge and the area behind it, the roof of your mouth. In American English pronunciation, L is a smaller sound when it is the middle or last letter. It can even be pronounced without the tongue. You can tighten the back of your throat and pull your tongue back to create an L sound. See if you are comfortable doing that. If that is too hard, just make the sound soft and light.

L: first letter	L: letter combination	L: middle	L: last	L: silent
Video	Video	Video	Video
Lamp	Black	Along	Able	Could
Land	Block	Also	All	Half
Language	Blue	Always	Animal	Should
Large	Class	Build	Call	Talk
Last	Clear	Children	Circle	Walk
Late	Close	Cold	Doll	Would
Laugh	Cloud	Color	Fall
Lay	Complete	Develop	Feel
Lead	Flame	Early	Fill
Learn	Floor	Family	Final
Leave	Fly	Field	Full
Left	Glad	Follow	Girl
Leg	Glass	Gold	Little
Less	Glow	Help	Mile
Let	Place	Hold	Numeral
Letter	Plain	Island	People
Life	Plane	Old	Possible
Light	Plant	Only	Pull
Like	Plate	Self	Real
Line	Play	Told	Rule
List	Please	World	School
Listen	Problem	Yellow	Several
Little	Sleep		Simple
Live	Slid		Small
Long	Slide		Special
Look	Slow		Spell
Lot	Listening Test		Still
Love			Table
Low			Tell
Listening Test			Travel
			Until
			Usual
			Vowel
			Well
			Wheel
			While
			Whole
			Will
			Yell
			Listening Test

More on the L Sound

Be careful with the second column, L: letter combination. Many people who struggle with L sounds will have difficulty when the sound is next to certain consonants--for instance, there might be difficulty next to B, but not next to C. Try to be sure you are pronouncing all combinations in about the same way.

"--le" is an old spelling. It sounds more like "ul." L is considered a semi-vowel to linguists. This means that the L sound can change. For the American L sound, there is always a slight "ul" when it is the last letter. This works even for words like "feel." This word sounds like "fee-ul" or "fee(y)ul." The small Y sound naturally comes between the long E and the short U sound (the sound in "up").

Continue Learning

Read sentences with these words:
L Sounds Extra Practice.

Practice speaking:
R and L speaking questions.

English Pronunciation News:
Practice R and L Sounds .

More Practice

Test your knowledge:
Take our L Sounds test.

Practice speaking the -al ending.

Listen for the R and L difference:
Take the online listening test.

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