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Practice

Drill 3 of 6 · minimal pairs

Targeting /ɹ/ · /l/

The right answer is really quite clear.

/ðə ɹaɪt ˈænsɚ ɪz ˈɹiəli kwaɪt klɪɹ/

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Say the sentence at a natural pace. Minimum three seconds.


Last attempt · phoneme accuracy
ɹ34l52aɪ81t94ə66n91s78ɚ48k96w71ɪɹ39
What went wrong

"right" came out as /w/aɪt

Your tongue tip stayed down and your lips rounded. English /ɹ/ needs the tongue bunched back and the lips relaxed. This is the single most common substitution for Japanese speakers.

"clear" came out as k-u-lia

A vowel appeared inside the /kl/ cluster. Japanese has no consonant clusters, so one gets inserted automatically. Slow the cluster down — don't add sound to it.


Recommended next

Shadowing, 4 minutes. Same sentence, echoing a native track at 0.8× speed. Repetition after diagnosis beats repetition alone.

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