Pronouncing the Erre Sound

Question

I had a discussion with my students today about trilling r's. They wanted to know if kids in a Spanish speaking country get to work with a speech therapist if they can't trill their r's. I told them I assumed that in some instances yes. However, I really didn't know. Any insight into this would be appreciated.

**

Which brings me to my question. Are there speech exercises that help develop the trilled r? Does anyone have any tips on cultivating the sound? I probably spent about ten years working on it before I could actually make the sound on purpose.

Answer 1

Yes. There are kids that are born with a lisp or are short-tongued and cannot pronounce the double r in Spanish (roll their r's).

Check out this article about frenillo dental o labial

Also, check out this fun video

Very interesting, Franco. - Noetol, Oct 2, 2012

The video is amusing, and the article is interesting. "Añitos" from the article is new to me. Is it any different than "años" contextually? When I have more time, there's a few words I need to look up from the article, but I'm good with a dictionary! - rheit, Oct 2, 2012

I'm an information fanatic. I found it interesting that 5 is about the age in which children should be able to make all the sounds, and by about 8 a parent should start looking into it if his/her child can't yet do this. - rheit, Oct 2, 2012

añitos is a term of endearment (5 añitos or barely 5 years old). You can also suck up to older people by saying: "Pero si apenas cumpliste 80 añitos". - francobollo, Oct 2, 2012

Answer 2

I think we all know that the sounds of a language have to be learned on their own terms, and that the sounds of Spanish are not achieved by just substituting in related English sounds. However, a (very) rough equivalent can sometimes be helpful in getting the idea of a sound into someone's head. What I noticed while pondering English speakers and their difficulties with the r and rr sounds is that, to me, the English letter that sounds most like the Spanish letter R is not the English R, and this may be part of what throws English speakers off. They associate the Spanish R with the English R because the two letters have the same shape. But the tongue is in a completely different place. So I set out in search of the English sound most similar to the Spanish r and rr. This may sound very odd, but, to me, it's D. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's much closer than R. You may have to work with the D sound to see this (or you might think there is no reason to see it, because I am quite simply entirely mistaken), but if you get a little T in there, trying to push air past the D, you're much closer to the Spanish R than you are with an English R.

Apparently, while I was writing this, someone else was saying the same thing! Didn't mean to just repeat what you said, Noetol. - MacFadden, Oct 2, 2012

¡No hay problema, amiga! :)) - Noetol, Oct 2, 2012

Thank you, MacFadden, for your contribution! - rheit, Oct 2, 2012

Answer 3

One thing that I have had some sucess with is thinking of "rr" as "dr". Positioning the tongue for a "d" sound positions the tongue just above the teeth, touching the gums. It is far easier to "trill" the "r" sound from this position than from the English "r", which pulls the tongue back, and does not have tip contact.

Not a perfect solution, but it is a starting point for those having problems.

For the single r in Spanish I always ask my students to say "Pot of tea" quickly. They flip the t to a d and get the single r sound in Spanish. - francobollo, Oct 2, 2012

Good idea! Hadn't heard of that one. - Noetol, Oct 2, 2012

Franco! I do that too! It works really well. We end up going back and forth with other words, trying to transfer the sound. "Para ti" "Eres" "Para ti" etc. - rheit, Oct 2, 2012

Thank you, Noetel, for your suggestion. Some letter combinations are easier than others, and you made me think about this more. - rheit, Oct 2, 2012