Make the American R! | American English Pronunciation | Consonants
Hey guys. It's Hadar and this is The Accent's Way - your way to finding clarity,
confidence and freedom in English, and finally today we are going to talk about
the R, as many of you have requested. The R sound: one of the more
challenging sounds in American English because the 'r' sound doesn't exist, I
think, in any language but English. So let's learn how to pronounce that 'r' sound.
So, in your language, you may substitute the R sound with a different sound that
is perceived as the R. It could be a trill 'r', it could be an R that is
produced in the throat. Okay? So, what you need to remember is no matter what you
do currently to pronounce your R, you need to shift it towards this new,
different sound that is produced with the tongue and the lips. Now, let me get
more specific to make the R sound the tongue has to be in the middle of the
mouth. The tip of the tongue should not be touching anything. So, if you're used
to making an R like this [trill R] then you feel the tip of the tongue touching the upper
palate. If you're used to doing [throat R] in the back, then the back of the tongue is
touching the uvula or the soft palate. Okay?
So there is no true contact when you make the American R, not in the back
and not in the front part of the tongue - "r". The only contact you have is here in
the sides of the tongue because the sides touch the sides of the teeth. Okay?
So the body of the tongue retracts and the sides of the tongue touch the
insides of the teeth, sort of, the tongue is sort of pushing the teeth from the
inside. now there's a lot of tension the body of the tongue. Think of it like a
fist that you clenched. Okay? It looks the same whether it's loose or clenched. Okay?
So that's what happens inside your tongue. The tongue curls back,
okay, and pulls back, but you also tense it up as if you clench your fist - "r". To
that you add the tension of the lips. So the lips round, especially when the R
appears at the beginning of words: run run. If you turn the sound off and you look
at my lips, it's going to sound like I'm saying "one" and that's good because it
should sound like "one", it should look like "one", but the tension of the tongue
creates that "r" R sound. So basically it's a W sound mixed with this tense "r".
Okay? I like to think of it as if it's a W with a W sound, or a W with an L sound,
without touching the upper palate - "r". Let's try it in a few words:
"run", "red". Now if you can hold out the R, you're probably doing it right and if
you can't, if sounds something like "run", okay, then you're
probably going to your natural, neutral pronunciation. "Red", "right". So this is the
strong R, an R that appears at the beginning of word or before a vowel. Okay?
This is an easier R to make. We're going to focus on that today. We're not going
to talk about R at the end of words, like 'car' or 'wear'. We're going to talk
about it in another video. So if you still find it impossible to make, I'm
going to give you two ways to go about it. Let's begin with the L sound "l". To
make the L the tip of the tongue goes up to touch the upper palate, right? So as
you pronounce the L and you hold out the sound - "l" - I want you to pull your tongue
slowly inside. "LLLL-rrrrr" "LLLL-rrrrr".
Okay? So you pull it in, right, and then the tongue sits there in the middle. Okay?
So now you're more aware of what your tongue is doing and where it's located.
So you've pulled the tongue in to the middle of the mouth - "LLLLrrrrrr". And then what's,
when it's in the middle, and of course the tip of the tongue is not touching
anything and you're able to hold it out, then I want you to play with the body of
the tongue. It's like doing those fine tunings until you reach that perfect
sound - "LLLLrrrrr". Think of your tongue as one big piece of chewing gum and you want to
play around with it inside your mouth - "LLLLrrrrrr" -
until you feel that tense quality. As you curl your tongue in the back,
the tip of the tongue is pointing forward, almost trying to reach the back
part of your mouth, the throat - "LLLLrrrrrrr". And once you get that nice strong sound,
you round your lips, okay, you can put your finger here to
make sure that the lips push forward and you're not doing something
funny. Okay? You don't want to create tension here. It's about pushing
the lips forward - "ler" - then you can shift to the word - "LLLLLLrrrrrrred". Fnd the sound.
Play around with it in your mouth. "Run" "right". Another little tip that you can
think about is think of a dog's bark. How does a dog bark? "Ruff". You hear that?
That's an R sound - "ruff". Connect to your inner animal - "rrrrruff", "rrrrun", "red". Okay?
That's another way to go about it and one last tip, instead of starting with an
L sound start with a G sound. To make the sound, the tongue touches the
upper palate and you hear these vibrations, so as you pronounce the
'g', pull the tongue in. The tongue is already all the way back there, very
close to the R sound when you pronounce the G so you pull it in a bit -
and make sure that the sides touch the insides of the teeth,
you can even bite on your tongue. You can like mark it to recognize where the
sides of the tongue are. Sometimes we're not even aware of what's going on there.
So we can bite on your tongue to feel the size of your tongue "ler" djer".
Alright, so these are a few options for you to play around with as you're trying to
reach that nice strong R sound. Once you recognize the R sound, hold it out when
you practice it in words and drill it in many many words, over and over again,
until you get used to the new pronunciation. It's okay if you don't use
it in conversation yet. Use it in practice and maybe you can read out loud
something making sure that you're using all the Rs correctly. Remember to round
your lips and pull the tongue in and as you read it hold out each R to make sure
that you're pronouncing it accurately/ Alright, I will release more videos about
the R sound because I have a lot more to say about it but I think that's a good
start. So practice it. Please let me know if you have any more questions and
that's it. Don't forget to subscribe, if you haven't yet. Thank you for watching