Hi everyone,
I am learning European Portuguese and on some courses it says to pronounce LH as LJ.
And in some other courses it says to pronounce LH as LL.
This is confusing me.
What is the right way ??
Main tricks to pronounce the sound LH.
1) DO NOT USE THE TIP OF THE TONGUE to make the sound but use the whole tongue compressed by the mouth.
SOUND
* * * *
* TONGUE * TEETH
* * *
TIP
2) Never try to pronounce sound L (in the normal way) as it uses the tip of the tongue.
As Eric says, you pronounce the Portuguese 'lh' like the sound in the middle of the English word 'million'. So 'coelho' would be pronounced more or less like 'cwel -yo'.
I'm not surprised that you're confused by courses telling you to pronounce it as 'll' or 'lj'.
Perhaps the recommendation to say it as 'll' is referring to Spanish pronunciation? Is the coursebook saying "pronounce the Portuguese 'lh' like the 'll' in Spanish words"? In other words, like the English 'lyuh' sound in 'million'?
As for the 'lj' recommendation - is that for Dutch speakers? Or perhaps it's following the International Phonetic Alphabet convention of using a /j/ symbol for the initial 'y' sound in 'yes'. Either way, you can be sure that it's nothing like the English 'j' sound in 'just'. Think of it as 'lyuh', and you won't go far wrong.
