Talk:л

light or dark

Leash and hall have two different 'l' sounds. The first is what English traditionally thinks of as l, but the latter is called dark 'l' and is done with the back of the tongue instead of the tip. Could someone clarify which 'l' this is?

Russian also has light and dark varieties. If the л is word-final or followed by a hard vowel (а,э,ы,о,у), it is dark (similar to the L of coal, but even darker); if followed by ь or by a soft vowel (я,е,и,ё,ю), it is light (similar to leash, but even lighter...more like lyeesh). Russian has the light and dark distinction not only with л, but with almost all of the consonants. There are only a few consonants that are light only (ч,щ) or dark only (ж,ш). All the others have both pronunciations, which is why there are two series of vowels, hard and soft. —Stephen 13:46, 28 August 2008 (UTC)