The Dark L, The Light L, the Wm and the Hs | Ultimate British Pronunciation Lesson 2
of my Ultimate British Pronunciation Course,
where we talk about why British pronunciation is so weird.
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So, first and the easiest is the H sound.
Sometimes, sometimes we drop the H sound
at the beginning of some words.
Dropping the H is very common in Cockney and similar styles.
You could drop that H, so it sounds like 'ello,
But again, don't drop the H for every word
And it would sound like you're trying too hard.
Remember that we want natural sounding
That's the goal here. So, when is it common?
Well, it's most common when the H falls between two words.
For example, in go home,
let's drop that H so it sounds like go 'ome.
It flows nicely, right? But why?
Well, we're now connecting those two words with a wah sound,
Connected speech is very important. Whole sentence.
We're going to drop that H, so say it with me.
Let's practice. I'm gonna go 'ome.
You don't want to sound like a robot.
You want to sound like a human,
so we could possibly drop both of those H's.
I'm going to 'is 'ouse. That's fine.
Another option, keep the first H, drop the second one.
That one sounds more Cockney to me.
I don't know why, it just does.
But, you have the option, right?
And of course, there's the option of keeping both H's
and of course, that's fine too.
See, they all sound British, they're just different styles.
Try different ways of saying it.
See what feels comfortable to you.
That is how you get natural sounding British pronunciation.
Would you drop one, both or none?
Plan how you might want to say this.
Now, depending on the time or depending on my mood,
I might say this a few different ways.
Let me just try now. Okay, quickly.
If I say it slowly, how much was your hotel?
In two seconds, I pronounced that in two different ways.
So, remember this isn't a fixed style.
And knowing that you can be lazy with pronunciation,
that's key to sounding natural.
First, we need to talk about the position of your tongue.
but feel where your tongue hits the top of your mouth,
where exactly on your tongue, hits where exactly here,
when you pronounce the L sound.
you probably pronounced it, apple, apple,
and the way you would make your L sound
is that the tip of your tongue, the very top of it,
would hit just here in the mouth.
This is called the alveolar ridge at the top of your mouth,
In some other languages like Korean,
maybe you'll use this part of the tongue
That's called the palette. Again, alveolar Ridge, pallet.
You don't need to remember those names
and some languages find it very difficult to pronounce
and distinguish between the L and R sounds.
And if you need help pronouncing
or distinguishing between the L and R,
definitely watch this video before you continue.
is it obvious that English isn't my first language?
Well, the L sound is one of those sounds
Now, that is not a bad thing at all,
but I understand that some people prefer
to have fully British pronunciation and that's fine.
It's all about where you put your tongue.
And this is what teachers mean
when they talk about dark and light L's.
The light L is basically how I modeled
the German pronunciation of apple, apple.
Remember, I told you the tip of the tongue
is gonna hit that alveolar ridge
This L, the light L, is for L's at the beginning of words
or when there is a vowel sound just after the L.
Okay, but what does that mean?
All right, let's look at the word, lolly.
Both this L and this L are light L's. Why?
Because it begins with an L sound
and this L has a vowel sound after.
So, they will both come from the same tongue position,
hitting the same spot in the mouth.
La, la, lolly, lolly. Say it with me, lolly.
But with dark L's, the tongue position changes slightly.
Very, very small difference, but very noticeable.
the tongue will hit more against the back of the top teeth,
or even just under the top teeth, just here.
This will depend, of course, on your mouth, teeth,
Of course, everyone is different,
where you should put your tongue.
For example, if I used the dark L with the word lolly,
remember they should both be light L's,
but if I said them in the dark L way,
it would sound like this, lelly.
Sounds weird, right? Sounds wrong.
And it's all because the tongue is in the wrong place.
All right, so when do we use the dark L?
We use the dark L when a word finishes in an L sound
or if there's a consonant sound just after the L.
Again, notice that my tongue is just, in my case,
it's just under the top teeth.
If I said this with a light L,
it would sound like hole, hole, hole.
And it sounds different, right?
So, that's when you use a dark L.
Another word could be helmet. Helmet.
There's a consonant sound after the L,
If you ever wanted to say the word lull out loud,
you would begin with a light L, finish with a dark L.
Your tongue would start hitting the alveolar ridge
and at the end of the word, come here for the dark L.
So, my tongue started here, back at the alveolar ridge,
and then came here to finish the word.
They're both lights L's because this L begins the word,
but this L has a vowel sound after.
Lonely. Practice with me, lonely.
Now, remember when I asked you to pronounce this word.
Germans, I'm specifically talking to you now.
Now you know that that L should be a dark L,
so it's not apple, it's apple, apple.
You can hear the difference, right?
Just change the light L to a dark L. Boom.
But then, of course, British is weird
Sometimes, we change the dark L for a wuh sound.
Brazilians, you'll find this very easy
because it's just the L sound, like the word for I, L,
I think it's like L with the line through it,
It's that sound. So, to practice, the word, hell.
Yes, you could drop the H. That's fine.
That's an option but we're talking about the L here
and because it's a dark L, we can change it for a wuh sound.
It could sound like hew or with the dropped H, ew.
So, if you're the devil (laughs evilly)
if after the L, there's a vowel sound,
So hew, that's fine, but hewo, no.
No because now there's a vowel sound after,
I'm kidding. It would sound silly.
So again, going back to this word,
you could pronounce it apple, apple.
(hands clap) Well done. Brilliant, you're amazing.
Okay, now, using everything you've learned in today's lesson
and everything you learned in Unit One about the glottal T,
let's practice everything with these three sentences.
Look at the different ways that you could pronounce these,
using glottal T's, dropped H's, L's for wu sounds.
Whatever feels comfortable for you to say
That's the goal. Let me just give you an example.
So we've got 'ello mate. What's 'is name?
So, notice I didn't drop every H.
I didn't use glottal T's everywhere.
Okay, no, I used glottal teas everywhere,
but I didn't drop the H in Hector.
You might pronounce it completely differently
but it will sound natural for you.
How much do you hate me? Is it a lot?
You see, that time I used more H's than before
I 'ave to work at the hotel late today.
Okay, that's interesting, yeah.
I usually drop the H when it's I have to.
I 'ave to go. I 'ave to do a thing.
Not only I have to, but he has to, she has to, those too.
but again, this isn't about copying my style specifically.
This is about finding your own style.
So, practice. Try a few different ways.
and also make sure you've downloaded my free ebook
really understand this course much better,
and I can't think of a third thing.