Comments on: Alveolar trills

by: Sam

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:31:28 +0000

I find I can pronounce /r/ quite easily, and I’ve been able to since I was young, even though I only speak English, with a NorCal accent. After /e/, however, I often find that I can’t do it (”perro” defeats me), and I’ll usually reduce /e/ to /ɛ/ (X-SAMPA /E/, in case the epsilon doesn’t show up).

by: Petruza

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:41:07 +0000

It’s worth saying that the tong twister is not in Spanish but ( possibly ) In Galego ( Gallego / Galician )

by: BG

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:21:37 +0000

@Colm: Chinese (pinyin) “e” is also pronounced [ɤ] (some say [ə]. It was the hardest vowel for me to learn.

by: Alan Coady

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:21:37 +0000

Excellent links - thanks.

by: Colm

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:47:17 +0000

Thanks for posting the links. They’re pretty neat.

Estonian has that trilled r and I find it a diabhail to do it!

I also have trouble with õ, the close-mid back unrounded vowel.

Estonian: kõrv [kɤrv] ‘ear’

Strangely, I found (on Wikipedia) that it’s present in:

Irish: Uladh [ɤlˠu] ‘Ulster’

I guess I will have to listen alot closer.

by: Nikki

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:03:29 +0000

This is one of the one sounds that’s been driving me nuts. I really want to be able to pronounce [r] and [ʁ] but I nearly always end up saying [ʀ]. I totally agree that it’s possible to learn any of the sounds used in any language (bar a physical problem with the vocal tract) too.

by: BG

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:05:48 +0000

I’ve learned to do the alveolar trill for Spanish without too much trouble as an English only native speaker (I’m not saying it was reallky easy). I just said perro and pero over an over again to distinguish /r/ from /ɾ/ (trill vs. flap).

I thought I heard that as a child one can learn any phoneme, but as one gets older some non-native phonemes might not be learnable. Is this true?

by: James

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:50:32 +0000

Simon can you tidy me up…? I am writing nonsense. pedántico…. since pie is masc. I´ve been working too long and need to go to bed!

by: James

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:48:04 +0000

(Pedantic note.. it´s EL cierre as per second post, not sure what I was thinking the first time. Sorry

Pie de página pedántica: obviamente EL cierre no LA cierre. No sé que estaba pensando. Disculpen)

by: James

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:44:12 +0000

Once you can do it the trap is to say r and ɾ the same way, hence the use of something like “el cierre de puertas” or “Porque Ramón Ramírez” to practice the difference

Una vez aprendida, la tendencia es pronunciar r y ɾ como si fueran el mismo sonido. Por esa razón se usa algo como “el cierre de puertas” o “Porque Ramón Ramírez” para practicar la diferencia.