English pronunciation
How to pronounce R and L in English (right vs light)
The difference between R and L in English is contact. For L, the tip of your tongue touches the ridge just behind your top front teeth and the sound flows around its sides. For R, you pull your tongue back and its tip never touches the roof of your mouth — and that is what separates right from light.
How to say R and L
Start with L: press the tip of your tongue against the ridge just behind your top front teeth and let your voice flow around the sides of your tongue. Hold the start of light and feel the contact.
For R, pull your tongue back so the tip doesn’t touch the roof of your mouth. Don’t tap it and don’t roll it. The sides of your tongue may rest against your upper back teeth; that is normal.
Round your lips slightly for R. Say road and load: R often adds a little lip rounding of its own, before the vowel does.
Switch slowly between them — rock, lock, rock — and feel the tip of your tongue leave the roof of your mouth and find it again.
Why it’s hard
In Japanese and Korean, R and L are not two sounds that tell words apart. For speakers of those languages, right and light can sound like the same word, so the problem starts in the ear rather than the mouth.
Other learners hear the difference but bring their own R: a tap or a roll, or a sound made at the back of the throat. Those are clear R sounds to the speaker, but an English listener can hear them as a D or an L. R straight after another consonant is a common trouble spot: grass and glass, pray and play, fry and fly.
Words to practise
These are the pairs PronounceFit uses to train R and L. Each pair differs only in that one sound; say both and listen for two different words.
R vs L
- right / light
- road / load
- rice / lice
- grass / glass
- pray / play
- rock / lock
- race / lace
- rain / lane
- reef / leaf
- fry / fly
Common mistakes, and how to catch them
Letting the tip of your tongue touch for R
If the tip of your tongue touches the roof of your mouth, R turns into L or into a tap. To catch it, say rain very slowly; if you feel the tip touch, pull your tongue back further.
Tapping or rolling the R
A tapped R is a perfectly good R in many languages, but in English it can be heard as a D. To catch it, hold the R at the start of rice for a second, like a vowel. An English R can be held; a tap can’t.
Losing R after another consonant
In grass, pray and fry the R follows straight on from another sound, and it is easy to land on L. To catch it, say grass and glass back to back and listen to the middle: the two shouldn’t match.
How PronounceFit trains R and L
Begin with ear training on right and light, rice and lice: same or different, then which one did you hear. If your first language treats R and L as one sound, this step matters most — you can’t aim for a difference you don’t hear yet.
Then say both words of each pair and get every attempt scored. When you read or speak freely, a word where R and L swapped comes back marked; tap it to hear the reference next to your own take, see a short tip, and retry until it turns green.
Read more about each step:
FAQ
Questions about R and L
Why do Japanese speakers mix up R and L?
Because Japanese has one sound in that space, not two, so right and light fall into the same category in the ear. Listening drills that set the two against each other are the usual first step.
Does the tip of my tongue touch anything for the English R?
Not the roof of your mouth. For R the tongue pulls back and its tip stays off the ridge and the roof above it — no tap, no roll — though the sides may rest against your upper back teeth. For L the tip touches the ridge just behind your top front teeth.
Which R and L words are hardest?
Usually the ones where R follows another consonant: grass / glass, pray / play, fry / fly. Practise those once simple pairs like road / load are reliable.
Can I hear my own R and L mistakes?
Often not at first, which is why a recording helps. PronounceFit marks each word you say, so a light that should have been right shows up even when it sounded fine to you.
More English sound guides
- TH soundThink, they, three: where your tongue goes, and the slips to S, D and F.
- V vs WVest or west: teeth on your lip, or rounded lips and no teeth.
- Short I vs long EEBit, beat and bet: three vowels where many languages have one or two.
- B vs VBerry or very: both lips closed, or top teeth on your lower lip.
English pronunciationEvery hard English sound, with the real word pairs the app drills.- All languagesEvery pronunciation guide, one language at a time.
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