Pronunciation of Tal

i know fianchetto gets mis pronounced a lot, so does anyone know for absolutely sure (no guessing or because you always heard it that way) how Mikhail's last name, Tal is pronounced?  Is it like the English word 'towel' or like 'tall' or other?  

This is a link to a youtube clip where his name is properly pronounced.

The pronounciation is with a long open (Italian) 'a' (not even close to 'o'). The 'l' is with a softness sign after, hard to pronounce for a non-Russian.

'Tal' is a german word, it means 'valley' (and in german it is a long, almost italian 'a', too) . Hence the german pronounciation is a good approximation.

Written in cyrillic, Tal is written as "Таль". Here, "ль" is pronounced as, well... Hmm, I kind find anything that resembles to it in english. The letter "ь" is put after other letters to make them sound softer, kind of like an "i" that isn't fully pronounced. I know that is confusing, so check this out: http://www.forvo.com/word/ль/ Click on the blue icon that looks like a play button.

If it helps, here is the phonetic pronounciation: " ˈtal "

Listening to that youtube, it's almost like 'tile'    i asked a Russian lady today, she said more like 'tall'  

Guess i'll go with 'tile'  with the soft i sound. 

Do what you want to come closer, I know english and american people have difficulties to say 'aaa' in Italian.

The 'a' in Tal is like the 'a' in 'laugh'.