Teachers, have you ever heard the word feeling pronounced as 'feel-ling' rather than 'fee-ling'?
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Yes, I'd never suggest that songs in general are a good way to judge pronunciation, but I couldn't help posting this one.There's a third possibility*: 'feel-ing'. I think songs may be a little misleading - if you're looking for everyday speech patterns. A lot of singers will choose to leave a syllable open and tack the consonant onto the following syllable (though the less formal, electrically amplified singers of today aren't so interested in sonorousness). In this case the dark l of /fi:l/ becomes the clear l of /lɪɲ/.
*I'm talking about logic, not practice. I generally use, and hear, the dark l; but it varies.
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Yes, I'd never suggest that songs in general are a good way to judge pronunciation, but I couldn't help posting this one.
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