Tips for Learning English

I have a question for those who speak English fairly well. Do you have any tips for speaking English? How did you learn phonics, how to distinguish between L and R, and how did you learn grammar?
Please tell me!

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I think only Asians have problems with the difference between L and R :thinking:
To pronounce L the tip of your tongue has to touch the roof of your mouth.
At least to say LLLLLLLLLLLLLLL… I’m doing it :smiley:

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Thank you.
From Asians who have trouble with different pronunciations.

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For phonetics in foreign languages, it’s important to understand that each sound will be made of a ā€œchoreographyā€ of the mouth, lips, throat, tongue positions.

First, understand IPA, then search for the IPA representation of words you struggle with in either American or British variants.

Then look at this chart and this chart for the specific phonemes, and try your best to build muscle memory to imitate/replicate that.

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As an American who just grew up speaking English, I’ll just add on to @vector’s advice and say that, for R, the tongue really isn’t involved at all. For me—and, forgive me, I’m not a trained linguist—there’s a kind of clenching that happens at the back of the throat and the sound is produced far back in the mouth.

For L, the tip of my tongue ends up at the roof of my mouth, just behind my teeth.

If you try to say the word ā€œhell,ā€ the starting breath of the ā€œhā€ is very similar (to me) to how the ā€œRā€ sound is formed. By the time you get to the ā€œ-llā€ of ā€œhell,ā€ the front of your tongue should be pressed against the front of the roof of your mouth.

So, that’s one word done! Just 500,000 more to go! :slight_smile:

Bob

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Listen, practice, record yourself and compare to a native English speaker, go back and read my reply on your other post.

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Another description, in case it helps:

L

For L, make a vowel sound like you were saying the letter ā€œSā€ (ā€œesā€) or ā€œFā€ (ā€œefā€), but only make the vowel sound without completing it: ā€œeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehā€.

Then put the tip of your tongue on the point where your two top front teeth meet your gums, slightly more towards the gums, but also touching your teeth. Keep the tongue fairly relaxed, but only the tip should touch your teeth/gums.

As soon as your tongue touches, the ā€œeeeeeā€ sound will change to an L — ā€œeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeLLLLLLLLā€.

Then bounce off of that point to practice some words like:

  • ā€œLikeā€
  • ā€œListā€
  • ā€œLakeā€

There are actually at least two L sounds in English. A lighter L that appears at the beginning of words like ā€œLakeā€ and a stronger L that appears in words like ā€œfullā€, and ā€œballā€. For the stronger L, the back of the tongue drops a little. I think that’s just a minor pronunciation thing, and people will understand even if you use only one kind of L for everything. I think most native speakers don’t even notice it until they try to speak another language and realize that they are pronouncing the L sound too heavily.

Edit: actually, I just realized that my tongue doesn’t always touch my teeth when I say L. Sometimes it touches my teeth, but it’s often slightly behind them. It can be as far back as the place where Rs are rolled in some languages. The heavier L might tend to be closer to the teeth, at least in my accent.

R

R is more difficult to describe because, there isn’t an anchor point in the mouth for the tongue. The tongue is floating at the bottom of the mouth, pulled back, and not touching anything.

It might help to try to imitate a dog growling like ā€œRRRRRRRRRā€. Find some videos of some native speakers saying ā€œRā€ and try to imitate them.

Shadowing might help. Here’s a playlist of videos (US accent) that might be useful:

Here’s a video that explains what shadowing is (UK accent):

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Light L and dark L (there are drawings showing where your tongue is for both):

The R sound (this is really the most comprehensive I’ve ever had on the topic):

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Great links. In the video about L, she makes the sound by putting her tongue in between her front teeth.

So making an ā€œeeeeeeehā€ sound and then biting the tip of the pointed tongue is another a way to produce an almost perfect L sound where sound is traveling around the sides of the tongue. Then move the tongue behind the teeth to get into the right position for speaking.

Holding the tip of the tongue between teeth while dropping the back of the tongue can produce the dark L.

Edit: Here’s an interesting word that might help with distinguishing different kinds of Ls. If you click the audio for the English pronunciation of salsa, it’s a dark L (end of syllable). The audio for the Spanish pronunciation for salsa is closer to a light L. The English pronunciation requires pulling the back of the tongue down.

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Lull lull lull.
Lull lull lull.
Oh my gosh.
Two different sounds.
I can not run the words together.
Confusing.
Lollipop. Lollipop.
I think i can run Loll Loll Loll together. Lollollolloll.

I have been speaking, and more importantly hearing english for 70 years and I need to use foreign words to help me hear my own language sounds.

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Are you saying that L and R sound the same to you?
So are you trying to improve your ear?

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Unfortunately, many Asians cannot distinguish between L and R (>_<).

I tried to learn some Portuguese years ago.
I made people laugh when I tried to say pao for ā€˜bread’: pĆ£o . Without my nose making a nose sound, it sounded more like pau which has a very different meaning.
Since English people don’t really need to be nasal or not nasal, there is a blindness to noticing it in a foreign language.

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