This is a common minimal pair in many parts of Southern China, especially Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.
Exercise 1: Contrasting the sounds
- Listen to the word pairs, focusing on the two different sounds.
- Then repeat, again focusing on saying the different sounds for /l/ and /n/
| /n/ | /l/ | |
|---|---|---|
| nice | lice | |
| night | light | |
| nine | line | |
| nose | lows | |
| not | lot | |
| main | ||
| mine | mile | |
| name | lame | |
| neighbour | labour | |
| number | lumber | |
| sneeze | sleaze |
Exercise 2: Listening and distinguishing the sounds
This will help you learn to distinguish the two sounds.
- Listen to the recording.
- Choose the word you hear.
- You can listen as many times as you want.
Tongue twister
- Repeat the following tongue twister.
- Focus on the two different sounds /l/ as in lame and /n/ as in name.
- Repeat again, trying to say the tongue twister faster and faster.
I saw my lame neighbour labour,
Lugging a lump of lumber to a pile
Said I to my lame neighbour named Lyle,
“From your home to mine it’s nearly a mile”
Said my neighbour, “It’s a not a lot of labour, coz the number of the lumber is nine by nine.”