I cannot roll my R's at all
Hola todos.
No matter what I do, I cannot roll my R's at all. I've spent hours trying to blow air over my tongue while pushing it behind my teeth and I just can't do it at all. I'm getting really frustrated at this. I've heard that people who speak English as a first language find this very difficult to do. I'm one of those, unfortunately for me. Even more unfortunately is I want to learn many languages that require trilling the R sound. No matter what I do, I just can't do it.
I can, though, vibrate my tongue if I blow air out of my lips (as if I were playing a trumpet.) I figure this is similar to trilling, but trilling must be done while talking in speech and I just can't seem to get this in any way, shape, or form.
If anyone can help me out, I would seriously appreciate it.
Gracias.
5 Answers
First of all: relax. The key to success is to keep a cool head. It's frustrating but don't let it frustrate you.
Secondly: I'm not a native Spanish speaker but we do have the same /r/ in my native language and I can assure you it is one of the more difficult sounds to master. Even children, who are little language magicians in all other respects, struggle with it for a fair amount of time. I remember my own sister twisting her tongue every which way until she finally got the hang of it. A certain percentage of people remain with a "defective" /r/ for the rest of their lives, though I'm not sure if it's due to physical inability or if they just gave up and let it be.
So don't despair, you're just a normal person trying to master a tricky sound which causes problems to natives too. Keep watching videos in YouTube (most of them with nice girls!) explaining how to do it, keep trying. Focus on trying to get it right in first gear, no matter how long it takes to say. Consciously overdo it every time to get your muscles to remember what you want them to do. Getting it right while talking in speech will come later.
Like you, I thought I'd never trill an "r." I'm still no champion at it, but I'm doing a lot better than I used to. Oddly enough, the comment that helped me the most was when someone pointed out that most of us pretended to be ringing telephones when we were children: Brrring! Brrring!
I found just hearing the r's rolled helped me. One of my friends is spanish and she rolles her r's like crazy so eventually I could just figured out how to do it naturally. I don't know if this is really good advice, but this is just how I learned so I thought I'd share. If nothing else works I'd suggest listening to people speak spanish and see if it helps.
Oh and something that you may or may not know, "to roll the R's" in spanish:
Arrastrar las erres
I like the advice you have been given. Here is an article I found interesting - try listening to some of the podcasts too:
Rolling the Rs is not what you need to endeavor at if you are learning Spanish .. The rolling of Rs is an English Terrain (The American accent).. In Spanish one needs to learn to rattle the Rs .. like we pronounce the r sound in Radio or Reloj // If you roll your tongue backward you will never be able to produce the desired sound because that is how we roll the Rs when speaking English in the American Accent and that is completely converse to the Spanish trilled R sound .. you need to keep your tongue straight and just bend it slightly to touch the fore part of the upper bridge (dont fold it back towards the hind part) and keep it there for a while longer (like around half a second) and your touch needs to be little harder than usual .. and then you would hear that beautiful and romantic Spanish R .. hehe
