'R' sound in Spanish
I find it really hard to produce the R sound in Spanish It seems to be trilled, but how to do that?? Can anyone share the technique in producing the r sound? Thanks a lot
3 Answers
To dig into this subject I would suggest talking to a native spanish speaker in person. Make sure you're aware of where they're from too. As in english, there's obviously a lot of different accents, so you may want to decide which direction you're heading, what spanish+accent you like or would want to have.
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From what I've found in Mexican spanish there are three basic R sounds.
- 1: the single roll R from words like para, pero, primo... practice with this one
parangaricutirimícuaro - 2: the soft trill roll R for any word that starts with R or for R's that appear before most consonants in a word... some even do a soft or hard trill role with words that end with R. Regañar, verde, abierto, acercarse.
- 3: the hard trill roll R for words with double R's. Perro, cigarro, ferrocarril, etc...
These are just some basics, in practice it can be more complicated, there can be 100 exceptions, and some people just flat out do it different. But if you can nail some of these basics, you'll sound a lot less like a foreigner.
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To practice 2 & 3: "R con R, cigarro. R con R barril. Rápido corren los carros cargados al ferrocarril "
Check out this blog post if you want more tips on how to roll your R's! http://openlanguage.com/library/learn-spanish/5/culture-show/898/talk-like-native-5-tips-on-how-to-roll-your-r-s
First of all .. if you are an American you may have a tendency of roling your Rs (which means roling your tongue backwards while producing the R sound from your mouth).. if you are not an American then you don't need to worry about that (as this rolling of Rs is a typical feature of American accent)... so dont roll the R .. which means don't roll the tongue backwards while producing the R sound .. 2ndly .. just produce the R sound normally (without rolling the tongue backwards and when you touch the tongue to the upper pallet/ridge of the mouth just hold on to that position for a second or two longer than usual and the touch between your tongue and the upper pallet of your mouth should be more profound than usual ,, and this will produce that rattling R sound ...as in Radio, Reloj etc. Hehe and also make sure that u take the tongue to the soft pallet (the part that is closer to your upper frontal teeth) if you take it to the back pallet then that will again bend your tongue backwards and roll the R sound ,,
