Hello there,
I am finally learning the language I've wanted to learn almost all my life. So far I'm having a decent start but having trouble sounding out words that sound so similar I can't tell the difference no matter how many times I listen to the recording. I'm learning about slender and broad consonants but finding that there's a lot that sound the same even though one is supposed to be slender and the other broad. Here are the words I can't hear the difference between how they sound.

Béal, Béil
Fál, Fáil
ól, óil
Lú, Liú

And I'm also having trouble hearing how the recording is saying súil and león.

I hope it's okay to ask for help on this because I know I'm not exactly asking for a translation but knew there might be someone here who can help me.
Go raibh maith agat!

At the beginning of a word, slender l is easy to reproduce, it's more or less a ly-sound as in "million".
(except in "le, liom, leat" etc where there's no ly-sound but just a single slender l).

liú is "lyoo"
lú is "loo"

for the other words, you have to hear a native speaker (or someone who pronounces properly) because it's hard to explain, and English doesn't have these sounds...

I made recordings here:
http://annexedicoirlandais.free.fr/sons/sons.html

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

What course are you studying from, celticlady?

Here are some soundfiles I made for the first set of words you asked about:

..béal
/b´e:L/

..béil
/b´e:l´/

..fál
/fɑ:L/

..fáil
/fɑ:l´/

..ól
/o:L/

..óil
/o:l´/

..lú
/Lu:/

..liú
/L´u:/

And here's another set of similar words for comparison with súil and leon:

..súl
/su:L/

..súil
/sú:l´/

..lón
/Lo:N/

..leon
/L´o:N/

(Corrections welcome)

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

I don't think leon has a fada?

_________________

Right you are (but fortunately the o is still long.) Fixed above (and on the server).

_________________
Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Wow thank you guys so much! This helped me a lot.

To answer the question I'm learning off of Teach Yourself: Complete Irish by Diarmuid Ó Sé. I really like it so far except that they speed through the words on the recording. It's just another way to make me work harder though.