IPA reference · consonant
l — alveolar lateral approximant
The tongue tip touches the ridge and air flows around the sides.
How to make the alveolar lateral approximant
Tip to the ridge, sides down. Whether the back of the tongue is raised — making it "dark" — varies by language and position.
English reference points: light, full. If you speak English natively you already produce this sound — the work is recognising it and placing it where the target language wants it.
Languages that use it
Sounds it gets confused with
Most pronunciation errors are not random — they are a substitution of the nearest sound the speaker already owns. These are the usual substitutions for l, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
Italian gl, Spanish ll and Portuguese lh are palatal.
What this means for learners
English uses a dark /ɫ/ at the end of syllables; French, Italian, Spanish and German use a light l everywhere, so "dark l" transfer is a persistent accent marker.
Teaching this sound
Describing a sound in words gets a student roughly half the way there. The other half is hearing it produced correctly, immediately after producing it incorrectly, with both versions available to replay. That is the argument for recording during the lesson rather than after it: the student leaves with your model of l attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol l make?
l is the alveolar lateral approximant. The tongue tip touches the ridge and air flows around the sides. In English you can hear it in: light, full.
How do you pronounce l?
Tip to the ridge, sides down. Whether the back of the tongue is raised — making it "dark" — varies by language and position.
Which languages have the alveolar lateral approximant?
Among the languages covered here: French (lire, “to read”); Turkish (dil, “tongue”).
What is the difference between l and ʎ?
Italian gl, Spanish ll and Portuguese lh are palatal.