pronouncekit

SOUND LESSON

How to pronounce /l/: the l sound in leg

Touch the ridge with the tongue tip and let air pass around the sides for /l/. Learn the darker l in feel and separate light from right.

/l/
American English
/l/ · lateral · alveolar · voiced
British English
/l/ · lateral · alveolar · voiced
Pronunciation model

Try it in a word

Lily will feel the cold milk.

Mouth & tongue

Enable JavaScript to view the 3D panda. Pronunciation steps remain available below.

Vocal folds: vibrating

TongueTeethUvula

Simplified human pronunciation. The small uvula hangs from the palate; it is not the vocal folds. The wave indicates voicing.

Voice settings

The mouth starts slightly open. Movement is slowed for observation; the synthetic sound plays once at its original speed. Pause holds the current mouth shape; reset returns to the relaxed position. The panda is a symbolic teaching aid for human pronunciation, not animal anatomy.

What your mouth is doing

The tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge while air flows around one or both sides of the tongue. It is voiced. Before a vowel it often sounds clear; at the end of a word, the back of the tongue often rises, creating a darker quality.

Comparing with Mandarin and Spanish

The darker final l varies by accent: strong in much of American and British English, lighter in some others. Both are ordinary versions of /l/, and the word still needs tongue contact or a clear back-tongue gesture.

Pinyin l and Spanish l work well before a vowel. Final l is the challenge: Mandarin syllables do not end in l, and Spanish l is usually clear, so feel and milk need the darker form.

Build the sound, step by step

  1. Touch the ridge with your tongue tip and hum, letting air pass at the sides.
  2. Release into a vowel for light and leg.
  3. Say feel slowly: raise the back of your tongue, then touch the ridge at the end.

What to watch for

  • Curling the tongue back without touching the ridge gives /r/, so light turns into right.
  • Replacing final l with a vowel turns feel into fee-oh. Keep the tongue gesture.

Hear the difference in your own voice

Practice light and right, then long and wrong. For /l/, the tongue tip touches the ridge. For /r/, it stays off the ridge, and the tongue pulls back or bunches.

Compare these sounds

Keep practicing

References & editorial notes

PronounceKit wrote this lesson as practical guidance. The references below describe the sounds; the comparisons with other languages are editorial teaching suggestions. It describes common American and British patterns, not every accent, and it has not been independently reviewed by a pronunciation specialist. The mouth model is a simplified teaching aid, not a validated simulation.

Published 3 November 2026