[r]

[Ċeaddawīc]

I apologize if this is intrusive, as this very well may be an annoying L&L quickie, but I'm trying to delve deeper into the intricacies of the ever-elusive [r]. Partly I'd like to pronounce it, since I'm learning Spanish pretty far along now but still can't say "ferrocarril" without saying [ˌfe.ʐo.kaˈʐil]. Specifically I'm interesting in how people who can pronounce it would describe the mechanics of it. I can do an [r] where my air passage is closed off at the velum (machine gun spittle sounds), but I'm not sure on how to get it voiced and pulmonic.

I'm also interested in how prevalent the inability to pronounce it is in native [r] languages. I'm just interested.

[Xephyr]

It looks like your first problem is that you're trying to trill an English "r"... or else you wouldn't be getting retroflex fricatives. Try trilling a "d" instead or something.

[Ser]

I apologize if this is intrusive, as this very well may be an annoying L&L quickie, but I'm trying to delve deeper into the intricacies of the ever-elusive [r]. Partly I'd like to pronounce it, since I'm learning Spanish pretty far along now but still can't say "ferrocarril" without saying [ˌfe.ʐo.kaˈʐil]. Specifically I'm interesting in how people who can pronounce it would describe the mechanics of it. I can do an [r] where my air passage is closed off at the velum (machine gun spittle sounds), but I'm not sure on how to get it voiced and pulmonic.

Check Klaiva's thread, You're probably sick of people asking this. There might be some advice that might help you.

EDIT: I admit this is definitely my favourite advice from that thread:

Honestly this is how I learned to make the alveolar trill. For the longest time I really couldn't pronounce it.

1. Listen to the Numa Numa song, in Romanian.
2. Get it in your head until you memorize every word & can sing it.
3. Try to pronounce the song correctly (dental t, d, n, [4] for r in most places; etc.)
4. Eventually the trill will come properly naturally in some places, like in "Vrei sa pleci dar"
5. Soon enough, you'll be able to pronounce Romanian properly and roll your r's naturally.

The whole process takes several months.

I'm also interested in how prevalent the inability to pronounce it is in native [r] languages. I'm just interested.

I don't think it's too prevalent. Obviously anecdotal, but out of the hundreds and hundreds of monolingual or mostly monolingual native speakers I've met, I can only remember meeting three who had some inability to pronounce [r]. One of them being, coincidentally, my brother (now that we live in Canada he's not mostly monolingual anymore of course). They replace it with something sounding like [ɹ]. Actually, the other two people were able to pronounce [r], but with noticeable difficulty, and when they did it was always too long ([r::]) and obviously a conscious effort. My brother is completely unable to pronounce a [r] sound.

EDIT: Err, I should probably clarify me and my brother are Spanish speakers.

[Niedokonany]

Personally I've known or met quite a few Polish speakers who substituted something non-standard for the /r/. Now I am usually able to say [r] when I want to... IMO the hardest part is combining it with various other consonants and sequences like rVr, rCr — they can be a bitch to pronounce especially when you're somewhat drunk. They tend to come out as [r::], or an epenthetic vowel pops in, or the trills derail into some othr rhotics.

I've found listening to Russian and Ukrainian music and imitating their accent helpful, since /r/ in East Slavic is more frequent and more strongly trilled than in Polish (in Polish it's usually a short one-period trill/flap and it's not that common due to historical sound changes). And an important thing to remember is to keep your tongue muscles very relaxed to let it flutter in the airstream and of course to occupy the right point near the alveolar ridge with its tip.

[gach]

Trilling a [d] might be one of the best advices for getting a [r]. In other words try saying nonsense syllables that begin with with strongly trilled [dr]. This advice is taught in Finland for kids that have difficulty in producing [r].

[r] is definitely a sound that needs a bit more effort to learn properly. It's not uncommon for kids to have some difficulty with it and when they are young they might replace it with a rhotic approximant or a uvular trill. But I have a feeling that difficulty with [r] is somewhat less common for Finnish kids than lisping. Anyway, kids nearly always learn the correct pronunciations at latest during the first years of school and the school also offers speech therapy to help in the process. You don't really encounter too many adults with these problems.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

I apologize if this is intrusive

hehehe

[legolasean]

You can always be Mexican and pronounce /χ/

[Culla]

You can always be Mexican and pronounce /χ/

1. What are you talking about? Mexicans don't have [X] for /r/.
2. You can't pronounce [r] as /X/. You could pronounce /r/ as [X], but the other away around makes no sense at all. Learn the different between // and [] please you have been here long enough to know the difference.

[Izambri]

Specifically I'm interesting in how people who can pronounce it would describe the mechanics of it. I can do an [r] where my air passage is closed off at the velum (machine gun spittle sounds), but I'm not sure on how to get it voiced and pulmonic.

Why closed at the velum? You need to expel air from your lungs.
Or I am understanding what you mean wrongly?

[ol bofosh]

That idea for [dr] sounds good. I'll try that.

My nephew (4 yrs old) can't trill; he can barely tap. It mostly comes out as [l]. Señol, lalo (raro), pelo (perro/pero).

I can roll my r's with the best (in an exaggerated posh accent), but when I'm coordinating a bunch of non-native phones it can be a bit troublesome. I have to take a "running leap", so any word with [r] usually sounds too deliberate and clunky.

[Ser]

You can always be Mexican and pronounce /χ/

You're thinking of Puerto Ricans, not Mexicans. Also, you should've used square brackets here: [X].

[Hallow XIII]

I remember when I was young I was unable to consciously make it too, as my dialect of German has the Uvular trill, which made me a) look weird to the Swiss and b) an idiot, as Albanian has that phoneme.

[Qwynegold]

[r] is definitely a sound that needs a bit more effort to learn properly. It's not uncommon for kids to have some difficulty with it and when they are young they might replace it with a rhotic approximant or a uvular trill.

Huh, I have never heard that.

Here in Sweden kids usually replace it with [l] or [j].

[gach]

[r] is definitely a sound that needs a bit more effort to learn properly. It's not uncommon for kids to have some difficulty with it and when they are young they might replace it with a rhotic approximant or a uvular trill.

Huh, I have never heard that.

Here in Sweden kids usually replace it with [l] or [j].

Yes, those exist as well. I've definitely heard /r/ > [l] and although I can't recall hearing /r/ > [j] there exist childlike endearment forms of names with this substitution, such as [jɑji] for Jari.

My mum tells that she had /r/ > [ʀ] before she was something like five years old.

[R.Rusanov]

That numa numa song has so many slavic borrowings it's not even funny.

Dragostea < Dragost'
Iubi- < Ljubi-
Haiduc < Hajduk
Voinic < Vojnik
Ochii < Oko's plural reanalyzed

I wish we had kept Wallachia as a fief, and more thoroughly Bulgarized it. Or at least that the Vlachs themselves hadn't gone so crazy about linguistic purism as to neuter their language and replace perfectly good Slavic words with Romance borrowings.

[Ċeaddawīc]

It looks like your first problem is that you're trying to trill an English "r"... or else you wouldn't be getting retroflex fricatives. Try trilling a "d" instead or something.

Nah, I get the place of articulation. I just do the retroflex to best approximate erre's sound in Spanish. I'm a fucking alveolar-flap master >:P.

If only [ʀ] was an acceptable alternative, for I am also a master and pronouncing French slowly and salaciously.

I guess I just need to keep trying with random mouth movements until I get it. I'm thinking my previous lisp-now-normal /s/ is interfering with my natural feel for alveolarity. I actually, being a native English speaker, have no idea how to pronounce /ʃ/ like it should be. In normal speech, I open the entire right side of my tongue (leaving the left to obstruct the passage of air) and direct a stream through the right side of my teeth, making a sound that sounds pretty normal to everyone but me (when I try to pronounce it like I think it should be, from its phonetic description, I think I just pronounce [ɕ]). Actually I think this can all be traced back to my severe lack of teeth and really small teeth.

Genetics, man. But I'm determined!

[Astraios]

slavic borrowing

Ochii < Oko's plural reanalyzed

Incorrect.

[Click]

slavic borrowing

Ochii < Oko's plural reanalyzed

Incorrect.

So it's from Latin oculus or what?

[Astraios]

Obviously. The singular ochi is from Latin oculus, and the plural ochii is from oculī.

[jal]

Specifically I'm interesting in how people who can pronounce it would describe the mechanics of it.

One important aspect is to not have the tongue to tight. It must be able to flap, after all (think a lose sail on a ship in the wind). The tongue muscle itself doesn't do the trilling, it's the airflow that does. You only need to have the tongue stay in the right place (which, admittedly, may be difficult).

I'm also interested in how prevalent the inability to pronounce it is in native [r] languages. I'm just interested.

Well, the Dutch solved it by declaring the /r/ to be one of the most variable sounds. Though there are regional preferences, within any region one can have different types of /r/. Dutch may therefore not be an [r] language, though it is an /r/ language.


JAL

[Nortaneous]

Hiw solved the [r] problem by replacing it with a prestopped velar lateral approximant, thus creating an even worse problem. (But that's shifting to [ɣ], so it'll probably be gone in twenty years.)

[jal]

Hiw solved the [r] problem by replacing it with a prestopped velar lateral approximant, thus creating an even worse problem. (But that's shifting to [ɣ], so it'll probably be gone in twenty years.)

According to Wikipedia, Hiw has all but 280 speakers, so whether the apporoximant shifts to [ɣ] or not, the language itself will probably be gone in twenty years...

EDIT: According to this map, the languages Vanuatu aren't very populous to begin with. Olrat, 3 (?!) speakers...


JAL

[gach]

According to Wikipedia, Hiw has all but 280 speakers, so whether the apporoximant shifts to [ɣ] or not, the language itself will probably be gone in twenty years...

EDIT: According to this map, the languages Vanuatu aren't very populous to begin with. Olrat, 3 (?!) speakers...

Exactly because of that map I wouldn't jump into any conclusions about the fate of the language. Most of the inhabited area of the map is marked as monolingual, including the full area of Hiw, so for all we know it might as well be a perfectly healthy language of a small but thriving community.

[jal]

Exactly because of that map I wouldn't jump into any conclusions about the fate of the language. Most of the inhabited area of the map is marked as monolingual, including the full area of Hiw, so for all we know it might as well be a perfectly healthy language of a small but thriving community.

Indeed. After the post, I checked that website, and it is quite fascinating. That researcher described many of the languages there, helping the population with litteracy and language preservation. Quite impressive. I especially like the story on Araki.


JAL

[Niedokonany]

That numa numa song has so many slavic borrowings it's not even funny.

Dragostea < Dragost'
Iubi- < Ljubi-
Haiduc < Hajduk
Voinic < Vojnik
Ochii < Oko's plural reanalyzed

I wish we had kept Wallachia as a fief, and more thoroughly Bulgarized it. Or at least that the Vlachs themselves hadn't gone so crazy about linguistic purism as to neuter their language and replace perfectly good Slavic words with Romance borrowings.

Well, I would, for one, consider Rumanian more interesting and original if it had made more attempts to derive modern terminology from extant roots (something like *apesc in place of acvatic, roditor rather than genitiv) instead of borrowing it wholesale from Western Romance... Certain registers thereof wouldn't look so wannabe-Spanish/Italian.