How to Pronounce T Dark L American English
I recently received an email Rachel one
sound that I’ve always had trouble
reproducing convincingly is TL this is
the sound and words like mental title
brittle capital and bottle the word
Seattle is especially difficult for me
to say correctly it would be great if
you can make a video on how to reproduce
this sound also is the TL in the words I
listed even pronounce the same it seems
like there’s something different going
on you’re exactly right the T’s in those
words are not all pronounced the same
when it comes to wondering how to
pronounce a T I will put a link on my
website to a video that someone else has
made but I think is a very good
explanation for that but let’s talk
about the pronunciation of these words
mental mental is the one word out of the
ones that you listed where I would
actually say a sound for the T mental he
is mental so to make that your tongue
has to pull away from your teeth and let
air out it then goes into the dark L
because this L is ending a syllable mint
ol so the jaw has to drop and the tongue
has to bunch up a little bit to make
that vowel-like sound before the tongue
moves to make the L mental mental all
all so the tongue pulls away fattens up
a little bit and then finishes up by
curling to make the L mental now as I’ve
said in previous blog entries about the
dark L the tongue does not always
necessarily move up into that position
to finish off the L mental mental you
will definitely hear native speakers
pronounce it that way men tol so in that
case the tongue simply pulls back from
the T to fatten up to make that
vowel-like sound mental and leave it at
that the word title in this case the
second T is pronounced as a D dull dull
we
means the vocal cords need to keep
producing sound through that movement in
this word more so in the word mental the
movement of the tongue feels very sharp
to me title drew the D it’s in position
here dull dull and it pulls back very
quickly to make that all all sound for
the dark L before the tip of the tongue
moves back in so the tip of the tongue
is pressing therefore the D dull oh it
comes away to make that vowel-like sound
dull and it moves back up to make the
final part of the dark L sound title
title is the same as the rest of the
words you listed brittle capital bottle
where it’s a D sound going into a dark L
sound and this is also true of the word
Seattle Seattle Seattle C ad Dole
Seattle