 You all can say leave lot or loop, but can you also say feel tall or pool? Perhaps you think you can, but are you really sure that you're producing a true so-called dark L in these words? Or do you say feel tall or pool like you do in German? If this is so then let's do something about it The problem is that the dark L that we need in words such as feel is not an alofone of the L phoneme in German German has an L phoneme But in all positions we produce a clear or palatalized L alofone for example in feel and leaf Thus many Germans only use the clear L when they speak English So what can we do about this? Well mainly practice the dark L first in isolation and then in context As a starting point we've got to develop a feeling for our tongue position which looks like this So let's move from a clear L to a dark L using L between two vowels and here we go Again Can you feel how the back of your tongue is raised when you articulate Allah? If you can that's fine, and you should now produce words that contain a dark L That is words where the L follows a vowel Here we go peel pale pal Paul pool pearl and so on and By the way, we should not forget words that contain a so-called syllabic L as in bottle rattle or poodle They also involve the dark L Well, and for those of you who know Cologne and the colonial or ripuaerian variety of German What's the favorite type of beer in Cologne? Well, it's colch Which tastes well, but also exhibits a dark L in this variety of German again colch Okay, I hope my advice helps and you will no longer find it difficult to produce present-day English words with a post-vocalic or a syllabic L