trilling an "R"

[Somensjev]

ok, so, long story short, i'm trying to learn either the Alveolar trill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_trill) or the Uvular trill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvular_trill), however all attempts at finding an easy to follow tutorial online have failed, so i decided to come to the playground seeking help

so, my question, does anyone on the forums know how to trill an R and can help me learn?

[Feytalist]

The rolling R is an integral part of Afrikaans. (That is; it's the only R we use.) Even so, many of my folk still have difficulty doing it properly, and have to go to speech therapists :smalltongue:

I just know how to do it though. Teaching is something different. Hmm. It's a very hard sound. You have to be forceful. Tongue against palate, push air between the two. Repeat until it works.


...why do you want to do this, again?

[Somensjev]

The rolling R is an integral part of Afrikaans. (That is; it's the only R we use.) Even so, many of my folk still have difficulty doing it properly, and have to go to speech therapists :smalltongue:

I just know how to do it though. Teaching is something different. Hmm. It's a very hard sound. You have to be forceful. Tongue against palate, push air between the two. Repeat until it works.


...why do you want to do this, again?

one of my goals in life is learning as many languages as i can, and there's simply too many languages that use a trilled R for me not to know how to do it

besides, it sounds cool

and i can kinda do a uvular trill, i just can't actually get it to sound like an R and i can't use it in a word, i have to pause, do it, then keep talking, which is horrible, so i merely don't try most of the time

i'd like to learn the alveolar trill, because it sounds better, and i've spent more time trying to learn that one, but i'm closer to being able to do a uvular trill

[Feytalist]

Fair enough :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, the uvular trill is what most non-native speakers use when they speak Afrikaans. It's easier, I guess.


Come to think of it, back when I was in a choir, one of our vocal exercises was to repeat "ra" and "ara" a whole bunch of times. Might be easier to start there. You just basically have to relax your jaw, after all.

In fact, our choir master told us to always use the rolling R while singing, regardless of language. The soft R has no force, and you waste your breath on it. Not sure why I mentioned that. Anyway. Like I said, forceful sound.

[Somensjev]

Fair enough :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, the uvular trill is what most non-native speakers use when they speak Afrikaans. It's easier, I guess.


Come to think of it, back when I was in a choir, one of our vocal exercises was to repeat "ra" and "ara" a whole bunch of times. Might be easier to start there. You just basically have to relax your jaw, after all.

In fact, our choir master told us to always use the rolling R while singing, regardless of language. The soft R has no force, and you waste your breath on it. Not sure why I mentioned that. Anyway. Like I said, forceful sound.

the problem is, at the moment i sound like a sick cat trying to purr and hiss at the same time :smalleek:
and i can't even make that sound at any noise above a whisper :smallannoyed:
i'm thinking i'll just have to try again and again and again, until it starts to sound right :smallsigh: or even until it's recognisable as an R

[Domino Quartz]

To start with, you should pronounce it like the "t" is pronounced in "shut up" when it's said really quickly (that is, like an English "r" with the tongue moved into the same position as with "d" in the middle of pronunciation). For the trilled "r", you pronounce it in the same way, but with your tongue kept in that position for a fraction of a second longer, and you try to allow your tongue to vibrate slightly.

[SiuiS]

I developed it by repetition eventually. It was like learning to whistle. I just kept trying until it clicked and I improved.

A friend once suggested the nonsense phrase arigidie arigido – "are-rig-gee-die are-rig-gee-do". Specifically saying two R sounds next to each other (like two words, one that ends with R and one that begins with R) helps you get the roll going. The G doing the same helps break up your speed and changes the Cadance of speech enough to help you avoid running on pure habit and muscle memory, which would thwart the exercise.


It's finally happened. I've actually written a pony reference by accident. Cadence has a E in the middle, brain. >,<


E: alveolar, specifically. I can isolate the uvular trill but not enough to do it in vacuum. I only produced the sound when I saw it showed up naturally in French, and proceeded into a bad accent >,>

[Mauve Shirt]

I got so much more confident in my German speaking when I learned to do uvular Rs. It's excellent to not sound quite as much like an idiot American (hard R emphasized).
Of course the way I learned it was I was told the angry cat noise I make when I am forced into a bad play in a card game is actually quite close, I just have to force sound through it. And then practice it at the beginning of words (easy) and in the middle of words (difficult, because it's not supposed to take an extra syllable but it doesn't come naturally).

[Somensjev]

To start with, you should pronounce it like the "t" is pronounced in "shut up" when it's said really quickly (that is, like an English "r" with the tongue moved into the same position as with "d" in the middle of pronunciation). For the trilled "r", you pronounce it in the same way, but with your tongue kept in that position for a fraction of a second longer, and you try to allow your tongue to vibrate slightly.

is this meant to be for a uvular trill of an alveolar trill?
when i try this it makes the back of my throat vibrate slightly, or that's what it feels like :smallconfused:


I got so much more confident in my German speaking when I learned to do uvular Rs. It's excellent to not sound quite as much like an idiot American (hard R emphasized).
Of course the way I learned it was I was told the angry cat noise I make when I am forced into a bad play in a card game is actually quite close, I just have to force sound through it. And then practice it at the beginning of words (easy) and in the middle of words (difficult, because it's not supposed to take an extra syllable but it doesn't come naturally).

that sounds like it's the same noise i make, kinda like you vibrate the back of your mouth/tongue and breath out?

[Aedilred]

The two trills are quite different sounds, so make sure you're using the right one for the languages you want to speak.

I think the alveolar trill is easier, and it's not uncommon among native English speakers (you hear it when people are trying to ponce up their accent). Place the tip of your tongue against the back of your top two front teeth. Then slide it upwards onto the roof of your mouth. A short distance back are two sets of ridges, one set on each side of your mouth. Put the tip of your tongue between one of these sets of ridges. (You might find it easier to do on one side than the other; I can do it much more easily on the right side of my mouth, as I've just discovered. This may be because I'm right-handed, or it might just be that that's the side I'm used to.) Then breathe outwards through your mouth and play around with the exact tongue position and tension until you get a sound a bit like an electric fan. This is basically the trilled part. To turn it into a trilled "r" just make a normal "r" sound at the same time. It's kind of like trying to pronounce a "l" and "r" at the same time, and the sound is a bit like that too.

While I can do the uvular trill I find it harder to explain. Essentially the sound is achieved by a kind of gargling of saliva, similar to the "ch" or "gh" sounds in Celtic languages. Again, try to put a bit of a "r" through that.

[noparlpf]

I could do it when I was a kid, but somehow I forgot how? I have no idea how I used to do it.

[FinnLassie]

Having had to gone to speech therapy to learn the r we use in Finland, the advice I can give is to locate where you pronounce your d, since the r sound is produced in a similar spot. I first had to pronounce all the r's in the words I was reading as d's, and as time went on I had to increase the amount of d's I used in the words and also speed them up, and before I could make a proper r without assistance I was going "ddrrrdrdrr". Helped me a huge bunch and although my Finnish r isn't a text book perfect example, it passes as a proper one.

For some people forming the vibration of the tongue seems to be the hardest part. I didn't even know where to pronounce the r, I made a [θ] sound which is just... totally off. :smalltongue:

[Starwulf]

I wish you the best of luck OP! I had 3 years of Spanish in high-school and I still can't trill/roll my R's, like, at all.

[PallElendro]

I'm not sure what muscles I'm describing, but the trick for me is to push the Adam's Apple and constrict the flow near your uvula so it appears congested. Practise the appearance in the mirror. The combination of the two, if you hit the right spot, will give you the trill you're looking for.

[Feytalist]

I'm not sure what muscles I'm describing, but the trick for me is to push the Adam's Apple and constrict the flow near your uvula so it appears congested. Practise the appearance in the mirror. The combination of the two, if you hit the right spot, will give you the trill you're looking for.

0_o

Not sure what you're doing... the only muscle really used is the tongue.


A silly thought: How do you say "grrr"? A friend of mine has a very common speech impediment over here, and I seem to recall he once said his therapist had him going "grrrr" as some sort of aid (although who knows, maybe she just got a kick out of seeing kids growling at nothing :smallbiggrin:). Seems like it could help.

[Domino Quartz]

is this meant to be for a uvular trill of an alveolar trill?
when i try this it makes the back of my throat vibrate slightly, or that's what it feels like :smallconfused:


I'm not sure what to call it, because I'm not familiar with those terms. The first thing I described is how I pronounce a Spanish single "r", and the second thing is how I pronounce a Spanish double "r".*

*In case anyone wants to know, I learned a small amount of Spanish while I was living in Southern California.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Not sure which one it is, but I learned how to pronounce the Spanish "rr" sound from playing a brasswind, actually, it's quite similar to the "flutter tongue", but back away from the teeth, towards the ridge of the roof of your mouth. Put the normal "R" sound behind it (with the normal mouth-shape), and blow some extra air at the tip of the tongue.

Then again, I am told that I make my "R"s differently than most people. I went to a lot of speech therapy whilst growing up because I had difficulty with that particular sound (I still slow down some times to make sure I'm getting it right). The primary formation is supposed to be something like making a "U" shape in your mouth with your tongue and pressing it against your pallet? I can't do that, and it feels like I'm strangling myself when I try. Instead, I start out like I'm making an "S" sound, but instead point my tongue straight up to the roof of my mouth by firming up the pallet and muscles at the back of my jaw.

If this makes no sense at all, I can't blame you, and I'm the guy who just spent ten minuetes in front of my computer at "way-too-bloody-early in the morning making seemingly random sounds for no apparent reason.

[Eldan]

0_o

Not sure what you're doing... the only muscle really used is the tongue.


A silly thought: How do you say "grrr"? A friend of mine has a very common speech impediment over here, and I seem to recall he once said his therapist had him going "grrrr" as some sort of aid (although who knows, maybe she just got a kick out of seeing kids growling at nothing :smallbiggrin:). Seems like it could help.

In my experience, English speaking people just say a kind of "guuuuh" instead of "grrrr".

[noparlpf]

Hmm. When you're saying "grrr" I think you're tightening the vocal folds, so that might be the posterior cricoarytenoid muscles if I'm remembering properly. And raising the larynx ("Adam's apple") probably involves muscles like the thryohyoid and some of the superior hyoid muscles to brace it. I'm helpful! :smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

Finnish contains an alveolar trill, for what it's worth, so I suppose I should be rather intimately familiar with the topic. Basically, I guess a good place to start is placing your tongue by the alveolar ridge and blowing air while pretending it's a jackhammer, hitting the ridge over and over at a rapid pace; it hits the alveolar ridge consistently when you go "rrrrrr". Perhaps this site would help: http://www.wikihow.com/Roll-Your-%22R%22s

Of course, doing it consciously and doing it unconsciously are two different things, nevermind actually adding it to your phonetic inventory so you can use it fluently in sentences. Even now, I still sometimes trip on the various different fricative combinations German contains in spite of technically knowing all the sounds and using them easily when isolated; my vocal apparatus cannot transition naturally between them. Of course, since phonemes aren't actually a physical thing far as your mouth is concerned. Good luck: Practice makes perfect (except when it doesn't)!

[Somensjev]

If this makes no sense at all, I can't blame you, and I'm the guy who just spent ten minuetes in front of my computer at "way-too-bloody-early in the morning making seemingly random sounds for no apparent reason.

this has been me for the past few days :smallsigh:
i've tried out everything people have suggested so far, they don't seem to be working seperately, i can't even seem to get my tongue to move properly for the alveolar trill :smallannoyed:

however my attempt at the uvular trill is becoming much better, it's still horrible though, and i can't seem to use the noise in any word above a whisper (well, it's louder than a whisper, but it's not a normal conversation loudness) :smalleek:

later i might possibly put up an audio/video file of me attempting it, and people could see if they could tell what i'm doing wrong? :smallbiggrin:

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Psh, I've given up on that. I had a speech impediment as a child where all my "r"s were "w"s, and for years it remained in r-initial words, but I still can't trill. Which is an issue because a "ray" letter in Arabic, which I'm learning, is an alveolar trill, made extra heavy when there are two ray's next to each other.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

this has been me for the past few days :smallsigh:
i've tried out everything people have suggested so far, they don't seem to be working seperately, i can't even seem to get my tongue to move properly for the alveolar trill :smallannoyed:

Pfft. Days. :smalltongue: I know plenty of English people who have been living in Spain for 20+ years who still can't do the alveolar trill properly. It's an absurdly difficult sound to make for people who don't use it natively so you really shouldn't sweat a lack of progress over a few days. Keep at it for a couple of weeks before getting depressed, is my advice. That said,


To start with, you should pronounce it like the "t" is pronounced in "shut up" when it's said really quickly (that is, like an English "r" with the tongue moved into the same position as with "d" in the middle of pronunciation). For the trilled "r", you pronounce it in the same way, but with your tongue kept in that position for a fraction of a second longer, and you try to allow your tongue to vibrate slightly.

This sounds about right. Tongue forward, above the teeth but below the palate in roughly the same position as the English "t". Most of the tongue is stiff(ish) and making a shallow "U" shape. The sides of the U are against the top teeth all the way from molars to about canines (this is so that the air flowing from the throat is funneled along the tongue and doesn't escape off through the sides). Tip touching the top-front of the mouth very lightly, and should be mostly relaxed. Now blow. Air should be passing only around the tip of your tongue, making it vibrate.

[Somensjev]

This sounds about right. Tongue forward, above the teeth but below the palate in roughly the same position as the English "t". Most of the tongue is stiff(ish) and making a shallow "U" shape. The sides of the U are against the top teeth all the way from molars to about canines (this is so that the air flowing from the throat is funneled along the tongue and doesn't escape off through the sides). Tip touching the top-front of the mouth very lightly, and should be mostly relaxed. Now blow. Air should be passing only around the tip of your tongue, making it vibrate.

i just realised today; i can actually do this, now i just need to make it sound like an R :smallconfused:

[AtomicKitKat]

I learned by mimicing a cat's purr. Make an R sound, then do a semi-coughing exhale(a bit like you're trying to sigh/force up a throat blockage) till it rolls. That's it. I'm not quite sure how else to explain it. :smallconfused:

[Grinner]

Trilling is where you roll the R, right?

My Latin teacher always explained it with the phrase "Ruffles have ridges". (Emphasis on the R's.)

To further add to the confusion, I'd advise pressing the tip of your tongue to the space behind your top front teeth and exhaling hard.

[AtomicKitKat]

Thinking over it further, I guess what I was going for above, was you go "Harrumph!", like when the horses are exhaling after a hard run.

[Morph Bark]

Try to make a snoring sound while keeping the opening between your mouth and throat open. You'll be close.

[aspi]

What worked for me for the alveolar trill was to first learn to roll a single r to get a feeling for how it works. It's basically a single tap of the tongue instead of a repeated motion. From there you can then try to keep rolling it. One advice I didn't see mentioned yet for getting a single such r is the following:

Look for words in your language that start with BR or TR, i.e. trap.
Replace the r with a d, i.e. tdap.
Repeat the word slowly then with increasing speed.
At some point the d will turn into an r at the tip of your tongue.

There is some muscle memory involved so do it for a few minutes per day and after a few days it'll work.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

In my experience, English speaking people just say a kind of "guuuuh" instead of "grrrr".
Huh. I definitely feel like there's a distinction between a "guuuuh" sound and a "grrr" with a hard, untrilled "r". Testament to how the typical sounds of a language affect how the brain learns to hear them?

[Eldariel]

Huh. I definitely feel like there's a distinction between a "guuuuh" sound and a "grrr" with a hard, untrilled "r". Testament to how the typical sounds of a language affect how the brain learns to hear them?

More a testament to how our own phonetic inventory affects our ability to differentiate between sounds. There's a good dozen different sounds that would mostly be transcribed as R in a language using the Latin alphabet anyways so I suppose it's not that surprising either.

[Gansie]

The rolling R is an integral part of Afrikaans. (That is; it's the only R we use.) Even so, many of my folk still have difficulty doing it properly, and have to go to speech therapists :smalltongue:

No, it isn't. :smallfurious:

The Uvular R is used in the Western Cape by the descendants of the French Huguenots. They actually spoke the upper class Heer Hollands while the Boere spoke the more Dutch-like Boer Hollands.

People don't need to go for speech therapy, as it is very easy for those with Uvular R's to copy the northern dialect's Alveolar R (and vice versa).

While the Afrikaans speakers in the North of the country (the Boere) speak with an Alveolar R, many people in the Cape speak with the Uvular R. During the Nationalist days, the northern dialect was seen as the only "proper" way of speaking, and therefore people thought of the uvular dialect as a "speech impediment", which it isn't.

I'm sad to see you still think like that.

[BannedInSchool]

Pretend you're a pirate saying "bard". :smallwink:

[Kalmageddon]

To us non native english speakers, a trilled R is just a normal R, right? A full, audible, non-slipping R?

[ZamielVanWeber]

To us non native english speakers, a trilled R is just a normal R, right? A full, audible, non-slipping R?

English lacks a trilled R, except in operatic singing.

[Haruki-kun]

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