Americans pronounce lab as LAB (/læb/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The lab will send the test results back" or "He will conduct an experiment in the lab" — more examples below.
Record yourself saying "lab" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
Place the tip of your tongue against the alveolar ridge just behind your top front teeth, the same contact point as /t/, /d/, and /n/. The difference is what happens to the air: for /l/, you let it flow continuously around the <em>sides</em> of the tongue (that's why /l/ is called a lateral). Turn your voice on the whole time. Lips stay relaxed, no rounding or flaring. For the Dark L variant at the end of a syllable, also pull the back of the tongue up and back toward the soft palate.
Drop the jaw noticeably. Keep the body of the tongue low and forward, and don't let the back of the tongue raise toward the soft palate. Pull the lip corners back slightly, almost a starting smile.
Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
In "lab", the "b" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
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