All that!

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Carolina1983

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How is /l/ pronounced before th? Does the tip of the tongue come out for the /l/ in anticipation of the th sound? "All that", for instance.
Thanks!
 

EnglishFix

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It think the tongue retains its normal position for the /l/ and the tip quickly comes out and strikes the back of the teeth as soon as the th sound is started.
 

N Senbei

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Hello, Carolina1983.

As a non-native learner, I can’t say for sure, but I think /l/ in “All that” can be assimilated to /ð/ and realized as a dental lateral approximant.
This is a quotation from “An Introduction to English Phonetics” by Richard Ogden:

2.5.3 Dental
Dental sounds involve an articulation made against the back of the upper teeth.
[θ ð] in English (as in the initial sounds of ‘think’ and ‘then’) are often dental; they can also be interdental, that is, produced with the tongue
between (‘inter’ in Latin) the teeth, especially in North America.

Dental forms of [l] and [n] are used in words like ‘health’ and ‘tenth’, where they are followed by a dental; and dental forms of [t] and [d] are
regularly used in many varieties of English (e.g. some forms of Irish or
New York English, and in Nigeria) as forms of [θ ð].
 
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