the struggle to pronounce rr

[ribbitribbon]

i’m trying to learn spanish right now, but i cannot seem to figure out how to roll my r’s no matter how many articles i read online. if you can, how did you learn? do you have any tips? if not, have you tried to teach yourself in the past?

 

[seliph]

i taught myself really young as a kid, i kinda just tried to pronounce "d" and "r" sounds at the same time with my tongue at the roof of my mouth and it happened

 

[ShinkaiTheSeaWing]

Loosely put your tongue flat somewhere on the hard plate (the harder platform at the roof of your mouth) and breathe out through your mouth, it’s the best explanation I can give

 

[VernalLapin]

in the general scheme of things, yes, but if I used it while speaking a language that rolls r’s it would probably sound pretty bad.

I struggled with it as a kid when my dad was teaching me a bit of Russian (most of which i forgot QAQ), he probably taught me and I eventually achieved it through practice. i don’t really have any tips, sorry ^^;

 

[Asarena]

My first language is English, and I learned to do it by starting from an alveolar tap, which is a sound that exists in my dialect of English in words such as butter. The rr/rolled r is called an alveolar trill, so the sounds are made in a similar way. The tip of the tongue needs to touch the alveolar ridge. Also, an alveolar tap is how the single r sound is pronounced in Spanish, so I think that further shows the connection. Like for me, the r in pero and the tt in butter are pronounced with the same sound.

So at first what I'd try to do is start with an alveolar tap and go to an alveolar trill. I'd focus on where my tongue went when I pronounced the tt in butter. Then I'd try putting my tongue in that position and blowing air to make my tongue vibrate against my alveolar ridge and produce a trill. However, I kind of struggled with that step, and it's hard to remember exactly what I was doing wrong, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't blowing correctly. I'm not sure if I was blowing too hard/softly, blowing in the wrong spot(?), or what, but it wasn't quite working.

And then I found a piece of advice where it said to try closing your mouth and blowing air through your lips. When you do that it makes a sound from your lips vibrating right? So that's how you want to blow to get your tongue to vibrate too. And from there I started with blowing through my lips and then just tried to switch the blowing from my lips to my tongue, with my tongue in the proper position of course, and that's what worked for me in the end! Like while blowing I'd slowly move my tongue to the position and open my mouth so my tongue was vibrating instead of my lips, if that makes sense. Oh, and the tongue needs to be relaxed, don't hold it too stiffly

 

[Midoriya]

Yeah, I can roll them pretty easily. I used to be terrible at it, but it just took a lot of practice to get better. I don't really ever have to use it though seeing as I don't speak any languages fluently that use it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Croconaw]

Yeah. It wasn't something I struggled with, but I never have to do it. I don't speak any languages requiring me to roll them.

 

[LadyDestani]

Yes, I learned how to roll my r's when I took Spanish classes in school. It wasn't anything formal, though. I just played around with it until I got it.

I pretty much use seliph's technique, but Asarena gave a really detailed description of it.

 

[ShinkaiTheSeaWing]

My first language is English, and I learned to do it by starting from an alveolar tap, which is a sound that exists in my dialect of English in words such as butter. The rr/rolled r is called an alveolar trill, so the sounds are made in a similar way.

Haha southern US stuff lmao, everything is an alveolar tap. Being from Mississippi myself, it just kinda comes naturally.

 

[Squidward]

I can, but my native language is not English so sadly I can't give you any advice. :/

 

[MiniPocketWorld]

I cannot. But I am ok with it. I don't speak Spanish, but I do recognize some words in it and sometimes know what people are talking about online.

 

[S.J.]

I can't roll my r's, but I definitely started trying the tips above on how to do it! I will post again if I'm successful

 

[QueenCobra]

No. I think that was the only thing that kept me from getting a perfect score in my oral French exams.