English Pronunciation - R & L

Hi there, my name is Ronnie and today I'm going to teach you some pronunciation.

And this one is especially difficult for people from Korea, Japan, and any Asian countries.

The reason is, is, in your language you do not have the different letters.

Japanese, I know, when you pronounce R or L, you kind of mix them together and it comes

out kind of an R and an L mix.

In English, we don't do that.

We have very different sounds for each, so that's why it's difficult.

You never learned it when you were children.

So I'm here to teach you.

So if we have a look at the board, we have R and L.

The best way and the easiest is the L. When we make an L sound, our tongue has to hit

the top of our mouth.

The way to practice this is by pretending that you are a singer and going la la la la

la la la la la.

When we do this, our tongue hits the top and goes up and down, la la la la la la la la

la.

For you to practice, you might look a bit crazy, doesn't matter, just sit at your house

and go la la la la la la la la.

It teaches your tongue how to move up and down quickly and hit the roof of your mouth.

So in knowing that, we can look at the L words I have on the board.

The first one is lice, okay?

My tongue hits the top and goes lice.

Next one is light, then we have lead, a lovely food, liver, and alive.

So you can practice moving your tongue and make sure it hits the top of your mouth when

you say the L word.

R is a little bit more difficult to make.

I always say that when you want to say R, you can sound like a pirate.

The word, the sound comes from actually from your stomach, so you can think of it like

doing a couple ab crunches when you want to do this.

You have to say R. Your stomach actually like moves in and you can feel it in your stomach.

Your tongue stays down.

So you can try and be a pirate and put the sound on the side of your mouth and put your

hands on your tummies, your stomach, and try and make the R noise.

Try now, R. Pretend you're a pirate, R. Okay, so let's go through our vocabulary with R

words.

We have rice, rice, right, red, river, and arrive.

Also when we say the R word, our mouth goes out.

With the L sound, it makes like a singing mouth.

So if this is my mouth, it needs some eyes as well and a nose.

It's a monkey.

So this is my monkey mouth.

When we make the L sound, our tongue goes up and down.

When we make the R sound, our mouth goes backwards.

So it's like you're smiling when you're saying R. And this one's L. So even the shape of

our mouths are different.

The best way to practice this is to compare the two and make the two sounds together so

that you can one, hear the difference, and also then try and pronounce the differences.

This one is the most dangerous.

For dinner, a lot of people eat rice, rice.

A lot of people, when they try and say the R, say the L, and it comes out, lice.

Does anyone know what lice is?

It's not even close to rice.

Lice is a little tiny bug that people and animals get in their hair, and it makes them

itch.

So lice is a very bad thing, and you don't want to say that you eat it, because it probably

doesn't taste good.

It might, but chances are it doesn't.

So lice is a tiny bug.

It's lice.

Rice is food.

These are some very common mistakes that are made all the time, so don't worry if you make

them.

Next one is the opposite of left, which is right.

So you can practice this by saying left and right.

The way to practice with the same word that rhymes is right and light.

You really notice that your tongue will move when you say these.

Right, light.

Next one, red, color, red, and lead.

Red, lead.

Lead is what we used to put in pencils to write with, the black or the gray thing.

I don't know what we use now.

It's probably some synthetic product to write with our pencils.

Doesn't matter.

The next one is river.

River is a body of water, and then we have liver.

Does anyone like to eat liver?

Liver is an organ in your body, and sometimes we eat the liver of animals, not of humans.

So we have river and liver.

Almost there.

Next one, arrive, alive.

When we arrive, that means we have gotten to our destination.

Hopefully when we get there, we are still living, so we are alive.

When you want to practice the difference between R and L, it's a good idea when you do any

pronunciation work to get a mirror and look at your face in the mirror, look at your mouth.

With the R and the L, when we do the L sound, our mouth is open like a circle, and our tongue

goes up and down like we're singing.

When we make the R noise, our mouth is back, and the noise comes right from our stomach.

Remember to be a pirate when you want to practice that, and don't worry if other people around

you wonder what you're doing.

You just tell them Ronnie is teaching me the difference between R and L. What you can do

is go to www.engvid.com and try your skills at a quiz.

Until next time, bye.