Canonical initial rhotic approximant/ɹ/
- Place
- postalveolar
- Manner
- approximant
- Tongue tip
- retracted no contact
- Airflow
- central oral
- Voice
- voiced
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Guided practice · General American English
English Sound Laboratory
Canonical initial /ɹ/ versus /l/ control
Contrast canonical initial /ɹ/ with /l/ while keeping the following vowel and final consonants stable.
PracticeGuided practiceRecord and listen at every stage
Practise with trustworthy examples. Reviewed audio is used where it is available. On other items, you can still record, listen back and retry. Pronunciation feedback appears only where this lab has a reviewed feedback check.
See · compare · avoid tongue contact for /ɹ/
Retract for /ɹ/; make alveolar contact for /l/
Canonical initial /ɹ/ uses a retracted tongue posture without alveolar contact, while initial /l/ uses tongue-tip contact at the alveolar ridge with lateral airflow. Rhotic-sequence variation and light/dark /l/ allophony remain contextual and are not separate targets.
Canonical initial lateral approximant/l/
- Place
- alveolar
- Manner
- lateral approximant
- Tongue tip
- alveolar contact
- Airflow
- lateral oral
- Voice
- voiced
What you are hearing: these short clips come from the reviewed sentence at the end of this lab. Use them as context examples for the sound.