MTL - Mouth To Lung.
Most people smoke a cigarette by drawing the smoke into their mouth using their cheeks to create a suction, and then once the smoke is in their mouth, they breathe in sharply to take the smoke down into their lungs. This is Mouth To Lung.
For someone using vaping to give up smoking, this is often the way they vape. A mouthful of vape, then breathe in.
MTL vaping favours juices with a higher nicotine content and gives you a similar hit in the throat as you got when smoking.
MTL kit is usually quite small and low powered, and produces a similar amount of cloud as smoking a cigarette.
DTL - Direct To Lung.
Here, we breathe the vapour directly down into our lungs as we vape, filling out lungs with a denser cloud of vapour. When you see vapers blowing big clouds, they are vaping DTL.
DTL vaping favours low nicotine juices, as the throat hit is too harsh if you use higher nicotine juice, due to such a large amount of vapour going down your throat.
DTL kit is usually bigger, as the mouthpiece is larger and the device needs more power.