Amazing - the 'l' thing

Question

I went to the link given by Django Cat,http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/about.html# and I click lounch English library -&gt;liquid-&gt;(l)The picture on the left shows the tongue touching the ridge of palate. However, in the real video on the right hand side, the girl stick her tongue between her teeth, just the same way as told by my tutors!She sticks her tongue out and pronouces a loud 'la'.You need to install Quicktime 4 to see the video.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

tsj wrote on 11 Aug 2004:
[nq:1]I went to the link given by Django Cat, http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/about.html# and I click lounch English library ->liquid->(l) The picture on ... teeth, just the same way as told by my tutors! She sticks her tongue out and pronouces a loud 'la'.[/nq]
There are many ways to make "la", but Django Cat (BrE) and I (AmE) make it without sticking the tongue between the teeth but the ridge of the palate. I'm sure we can both do it both ways, but the palate way is natural for some of us.

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Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I went to the link given by Django Cat, http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/about.html# and I click lounch English library ->liquid->(l) The picture on ... sticks her tongue out and pronouces a loud 'la'. You need to install Quicktime 4 to see the video. [/nq]
In fact if you watch again, she sticks her tongue between her teeth on the 'la' example before the /l/ sound actually starts, and then she clamps it between her teeth again when she follows this by realising a continuing /l/ sound. /l/ doesn't really occur as a continuant consonant, so this isn't completely natural - the animation shows the tongue position as other posters have described.
DC

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The picture on the left shows the tongue touching the ridge of palate. However, in the real video on the ... teeth, just the same way as told by my tutors! She sticks her tongue out and pronouces a loud 'la'.[/nq]
It's possible to do it that way; it just isn't done that way by the vast majority of English speakers.
Now, replaced "la" with "ld," and you'll find that pronouncing 'l' between the teeth is much, much harder.
However, you're free to do it any way you want. If the result looks correct in a spectrogram, it doesn't matter how you actually produce the sound.
As an example, there are at least two different ways to pronounce a stanard 'r' in English. Both sound identical, so it doesn't matter which is used. However, the vast majority of English speakers use only one of the two ways to prounounce 'r' (postalveolar approximant). It's not clear why a handful of speckers do it a different way, but it doesn't really matter.
[nq:1]You need to install Quicktime 4 to see the video.[/nq]
I guess I won't see it, then. I don't install anything just to visit a Web site, and Quicktime is particularly troublesome.

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Amazing - the 'l' thing

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