They See Me Rollin' (my R's)

I’ve never been able to roll my r’s. Maybe the historic Chinese trouble with r’s combined with the fact that I took French made a deadly combination for my tongue and glottal region

While I’m unemployed, I’m embarking on 1-week long projects, and the first one is focusing on Deliberate Practice for Rolling R’s

Day 1

Rough Plan

• 10 min research
  • gather tips/descriptions from Reddit + Youtube + maybe Duolingo/Pimsleur
• 20 min- try the tips
  • for each tip, recording myself each time and listening back
    • write down whether I feel different parts of my mouth working differently
    • gain some sense around what is the motion that results in the rolling r
• 10 min- summarize the day
  • maybe share the recordings with other spanish speakers in my life

Research (skip this section unless you also want to learn how to roll your r’s)

• This is how my Spanish teacher taught us. Say the phrase “butter up” say it several times fast to get the feel of it. Feel where the tip of your tongue hits the roof of your mouth (somewhere in the middle to back of your mouth)? That’s where your tongue needs to be when you roll your r’s. Direct the air between the tip of your tongue and the roof of your mouth and try to make the machine gun noise of rolling your r’s.
  • oh here’s specifically someone who talks about French! I learned French and I have a tendency to do a the “nasal” r-roll, so it’s been really hard for me to roll my r’s any other way.
    • Some words to try: verga (dirty word lol), Rosa, Correr, perro
• I took Spanish and French so I know finding the placement of r’s in certain languages can be tough. A good trick to help is to remember where R’s “are” in your mouth:
  • English - front French- back/ throat Spanish- middle
  • My Spanish teachers said Spanish r’s are in the middle of your mouth. When you think to put it in the middle, the position to make that trill happen might come more naturally. Your tongue will be less tense in the middle, while making the tip of your tongue rise to the bottom of your top teeth, and will allow the tongue be relaxed so air can travel in order to make that roll happen
• Say “DRRRR” but instead of pulling your tongue back for the R, just blow out air and let it flap around. Once you get that, try to do it by just exhaling without the initial sound
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjoOD8SVhos
  • Make a “Ffff” to establish airflow, and then “flick” your tongue into the airflow so that it approximates a flag flapping in the wind. Then after you get that feeling, you can add voice to it, which gets you the rolling r
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9mMvuRGKY8
  1. Engine Lips (and use your lips)
  2. Tongue and Lip ← this is where I get stuck right now
  3. Tongue behind Teeth
  4. Put it all together
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfuyz9lxE0s - Oh ho, the “Tried and Tested way!”
  • Tongue needs to be at the alveolar ridge, like in “N- Netherlands/Nina”
  • Rolled R exercises
    • First drill: indri
    • Second: itri
    • Trimma
  • Flipped R
    • Liri, Diri, Piri
• For information sake, this type of rolled ‘r’ is called an “alveolar trill” (that “bump” at the front of the mouth is the “alveolar ridge”). I can confirm that this method works - it’s how I learned the ‘rr’ for Spanish. It may help to pretend you’re starting with a “th” sound. Also, don’t forget to activate your vocal cords.
  • The “French r” is a “uvular trill” (although actual realization varies - from a velar fricative to uvular fricatives to a full trill). It’s probably a bit harder for English speakers, but I learned it first, and don’t remember learning it. I tell people to produce the Scottish or German “ch”, and activate the vocal cords, and you’ll be close enough (that would be the velar fricative variant).
• This worked for me when I learnt the trill for Indonesian: try saying ‘pot of tea’ repeatedly, and gradually getting faster and faster. Eventually the tongue starts fluttering against the roof of your mouth, you will hear the trill start to form until you can do a little roll. Then try find a word that has the trill, practice this word over and over and eventually it should develop. Good luck!
• I said T-D-T-D-T-D-T-D (like tuh-duh) over and over and over again, but using just the tip my tongue on the alveolar ridge to do so. (Don’t let your tongue touch the back of your front teeth). After what was probably hours I managed a little roll, and then it was just a case of tuning it.
• “R con R cigarro, R con R barril, Rapido corren los carros por los Riles del ferrocarril.”
• “Edit. Edit it. Edited it. Ed edited it. Ed edited it.” Say this enough (speed it up), you’ll be able to trill your “r’s”. Also, “edit” pretty much gets the flap of the single interior r.

Reflection

• Here’s a short Loom that I sent to some Spanish-speaking friends to get “Deliberate Practice real time feedback”
• Note: as others say, there’s some people that can’t actually roll their R’s at all, i.e. only if you have a fraenum problem (Google indicates that this is called Rotacism)
• The tongue is a muscle, and just like any other muscle, it needs training. It won’t happen overnight, you’re going to have to practice it for a while, but keep at it and it’s nice to put effort into things