The Dark L, The Light L, the Ws and the Hs | Ultimate British Pronunciation Lesson 2

- Welcome back to Unit Two

of my Ultimate British Pronunciation Course,

where we talk about why British pronunciation is so weird.

If you haven't already, please download my free ebook

from papateachme.com.

You just go there and I'll send it to your email.

It's free, don't worry. It's all good.

This book will help you track your progress

throughout this course

and help you follow these videos much more easily.

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.

So, let's do some examples.

The word, hello.

You could drop that H, so it sounds like 'ello,

and that would be fine.

But again, don't drop the H for every word

which begins with an H.

No one does that.

And it would sound like you're trying too hard.

Remember that we want natural sounding

British pronunciation.

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,

go wome, go wome.

Say it with me. Go wome.

Connected speech is very important. Whole sentence.

I'm gonna go home.

We're going to drop that H, so say it with me.

Let's practice. I'm gonna go 'ome.

I'm going to his house.

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.

You say it.

Another option, keep the first H, drop the second one.

I'm going to his 'ouse.

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.

I'm going to his house.

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.

New sentence, new question.

Look at the H's.

Would you drop one, both or none?

Plan how you might want to say this.

Try a few different ways.

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.

How much was your 'otel?

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.

Variety is the key word.

And knowing that you can be lazy with pronunciation,

that's key to sounding natural.

Okay, now the L sound.

First, we need to talk about the position of your tongue.

Okay, say this word. Really.

Say this word right now,

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.

If you're German or Austrian,

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,

just behind the top teeth.

In some other languages like Korean,

maybe you'll use this part of the tongue

on this part of the mouth.

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.

Also, when students ask me,

is it obvious that English isn't my first language?

Well, the L sound is one of those sounds

that makes it obvious.

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.

So, how do we do that?

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

just behind your top teeth.

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.

With the dark L,

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,

and tongue size and shape.

Of course, everyone is different,

so I can't tell you exactly

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.

For example, words like hole.

Again, notice that my tongue is just, in my case,

it's just under the top teeth.

It's just there, hole.

If I said this with a light L,

it would sound like hole, hole, hole.

And it sounds different, right?

You can hear the difference.

So, that's when you use a dark L.

Another word could be helmet. Helmet.

There's a consonant sound after the L,

so helmet, helmet.

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.

Sounds like this lull, lull.

So, my tongue started here, back at the alveolar ridge,

and then came here to finish the word.

Okay, how about this 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.

(hands clap) Well done.

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

and we do this other thing.

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,

and Polish, as well.

I think you have this sound.

I think it's like L with the line through it,

whatever that is.

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)

welcome to ew, mate.

But here's the thing,

if after the L, there's a vowel sound,

now it's no longer a dark L.

Now it's a light L.

So hew, that's fine, but hewo, no.

No because now there's a vowel sound after,

so hello, not hewo.

That would sound siwwy.

I'm kidding. It would sound silly.

So again, going back to this word,

you could pronounce it apple, apple.

Say it with me, 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 sounds.

Look at the different ways that you could pronounce these,

using glottal T's, dropped H's, L's for wu sounds.

So many options.

Whatever feels comfortable for you to say

will sound natural.

That's the goal. Let me just give you an example.

So we've got 'ello mate. What's 'is name?

Is it Hector?

So, notice I didn't drop every H.

I didn't use glottal T's everywhere.

Wait, did I?

Okay, no, I used glottal teas everywhere,

but I didn't drop the H in Hector.

You might pronounce it completely differently

and that will be fine.

It will still sound British

but it will sound natural for you.

That's the important thing.

All right, second one.

How much do you hate me? Is it a lot?

You see, that time I used more H's than before

and that's fine.

Okay, next one.

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.

He 'as to, she 'as to.

For me, it's very common,

but again, this isn't about copying my style specifically.

This is about finding your own style.

So, practice. Try a few different ways.

See what works for you

and also make sure you've downloaded my free ebook

from papateachme.com.

You can get it today

and this will help you

really understand this course much better,

track your progress,

and I can't think of a third thing.

So, I'll see you in Unit Three next Saturday.

See you later.

(upbeat music)