f/f/
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
How to pronounce falls in American English
FAHLZ
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Americans pronounce falls as FAHLZ (/fɑlz/). The L in "falls" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. This is called the Dark L vs Light L, and it's why Americans sound more relaxed than the textbook. It comes out as FAHLZ. You'll hear it in sentences like "The ocean tide rises and falls twice a day".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "falls".
1 syllable, 4 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ah/ɑ/
Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.
l/l/
DarkKeep the tongue tip down and pull the back of the tongue up toward the throat. The 'dark' sound comes from the back.
z/z/
Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.
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Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Treating every L the same.
The L in "falls" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. Dark L adds a small schwa-like "uh" before the L. The back of the tongue lifts toward the soft palate.
falls→FAHLZ
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "falls" different from British English?
American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "FAHLZ" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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