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Anonymous Posted 11 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

How to pronounce /r/ sound!?

I am non-native and I find it really difficult to pronounce the /r/ sound, I can pronounce /r/ sound when there is no /l/ in a word such as 'where' and 'wire' or when /r/ sound is at the beginning of a word such as 'rain' and 'ripe' but when it comes to the words such as 'clear' which have both /l/ and /r/ sounds in it, my tongue gets twisted and pronounces /r/ sound as /l/ sound. I am seriously dying to pronounce the following sentence fluently. "My magic will tear you apart." I can pronounce the word 'tear' properly in British accent because it does not need to roll your tongue but I can't in American accent. Because the word 'tear' is right after the word 'will', it makes my tongue pronounce 'tear' as 'tell'. I watched lots of youtube videos but I still can't do it properly. I need your help. Any tips would be appreciated.
  

Top answer

Two tips come to mind. 1. Keep in mind that your tongue touches your top teeth (or just above them) for /l/.

  • Two tips come to mind.
  • 1.
  • Keep in mind that your tongue touches your top teeth (or just above them) for /l/.
  • Not for /r/.
  • The tongue is drawn back from the /l/ position when producing an /r/ so that it's more or less curled upward but not touching anything.
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1 Answers
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Two tips come to mind.

1. Keep in mind that your tongue touches your top teeth (or just above them) for /l/. Not for /r/. The tongue is drawn back from the /l/ position when producing an /r/ so that it's more or less curled upward but not touching anything. Also, the lips are a bit more open for /l/ and a bit more drawn in and rounded for /r/.

2. Speak slowly, one word at a t

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