Jj is for Jottings 69. /l/ Sound is Different on the End.
You probably haven’t thought about this before, but /l/ (the slashes indicate the sound rather than the letter name) is pronounced differently when it is the last sound in an utterance or followed by a consonant, compared with when it is followed by a vowel. And if that sounds like gobbledygook, we’ll use some examples to make it clear. Be prepared to experiment aloud as you read, so you might want to read this by yourself, in case those around you think you’ve gone off your rocker!
When /l/ is followed by a vowel:
Using the word “like” as an example, we put our tongue up on the bumpy gum behind our top front teeth (on the alveolar ridge, if you want to get technical – this is the same position as for /t,d,n/); the breath passes in a continuous stream over one or both sides of the tongue; and we “complete” the sound by dropping the tongue to the floor of the mouth as we say the vowel – this case /ie/. Note that /l/ is a voiced sound (see https://educatingalpacas.com/minimal-pairs-voiced-vs-voiceless/.
The sound really has two stages: 1. Put the tongue tip up behind the top front teeth, and 2. Drop the tongue to the floor of the mouth as you say the vowel.
When /l/ is on the end:
Using “ball’ as an example, we do the same as above, but don’t complete the sound – the tongue stays up behind the top front teeth i.e. stage 1 only. Note that many young children who use /l/ correctly when followed by a vowel do not actually say /l/ on the end – it’s usually nothing (“ball” would become “bor”) or /w/ (sounding like “borw” with a partial /w/ sound). I suspect that many of them haven’t actually heard that there is a /l/ on the end, not because they have a hearing problem but because they don’t listen closely (see https://educatingalpacas.com/a-listening-exercise/).
When /l/ is followed by a consonant:
This includes within a word eg. “milk, gulp, kilt” etc., and when /l/ is on the end of a word that is followed by a word beginning with a consonant eg. “We’ll come over tomorrow”, “The bell clanged loudly’ etc. We produce it in the same way as /l/ on the end – stage 1 only.
If you have experimented aloud with these different contexts you will feel and hear the differences, which might help you understand just a little more about your child’s speech or, indeed, any young child’s speech. And your own.
Next time we’ll talk a little more about sound positions in words and their effects in speech.
