I know you are not supposed to touch the inside of your mouth with your tongue. But should you kind of tilt the tip of your tongue upwards, or should you raise the back of your tongue instead.
2006-09-27 09:10:45 · 9 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
No, no, no... raising the back of your tongue makes you sound French! A French mouth is only used for one thing really well by a non-French-speaking person... ;-)
2006-09-27 09:11:58 · answer #1 · answered by Bitsie 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
While there are different types of r's in American English, the easiest way to make an r is to start by making the "n" sound. While you are saying nnnnnn, notice that the sides of your tongue are against the sides of your mouth, touching your back teeth. The tip of your tongue is touching your front teeth. Without moving the sides of your tongue, move the tip of your tongue so that it is pointing up a little in your mouth and not touching anything in your mouth.
It may not be a perfect r, but it will make your pronunciation closer to the way many Americans do it, assuming that you are asking this because you are learning English.
2006-09-27 10:04:40 · answer #2 · answered by starcow 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
There are actually several different ways in which the American "r" is pronounced depending on the speaker. There are three common ways. The first is to make it slightly retroflex, that is, you curl the tip of your tongue slightly back towards the top of your mouth. The second is to raise the sides of your tongue in such a way as to make a sort of tube down the middle. The sides of your tongue will touch the top of your mouth. The third is to bunch your tongue up lengthwise down the middle of your mouth. With this method the top back of your tongue will actually touch the top of your mouth, but will not make a lot of contact. All three of these methods are interesting in that the phonetic result is almost identical on a sound spectrogram for each of them. Thus, the perceptual difference is very slight. Most speakers of American English will settle unconsciously on one or the other of these methods and stick with them for their entire life. Some speakers will mix and match depending on the other sounds in the word.
2006-09-27 09:22:38 · answer #3 · answered by Taivo 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The back of the toung is raised while the tip is lowered to the bottom teeth. Non of wich touches the inside of your mouth. How ever this also varries depending on the vowel sound associated with it. In addition on who you are talking to. For example I am a clasically trained Sinnger. I tend to pronounce things bassed on there nationality. Vermonters as well as people from New Hampshire do also. While people in Main tend to drop r's and put them in other places.
2006-09-27 09:20:11 · answer #4 · answered by Richmond C 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
dont touch the roof of ur mouth, but tilt ur tongue upwards like 90 degrees
2006-09-27 18:15:21 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
lol..Ok... I've been saying "r" for a bit now and I raise the back of my tongue w/out a tilt... Kind of like an initial "ahhh"... followed by an "er" (although that might not help with the 'r' in 'er') ... :)
2006-09-27 09:14:57 · answer #6 · answered by happymonkie 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I am from Boston we do not pronounce it at all
I drank beer with a bear in a bar in Revere would be pronounced:
I drank beeah with a bayah in a bah in Reveah
2006-09-27 09:13:24 · answer #7 · answered by WendyD1999 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Jeez.....we have like 20 different accents plus each of those has a hundred sub-accents, so it gets pronounced a lot of different ways.
I don't think you do either of those to pronounce R.......
2006-09-27 09:18:15 · answer #8 · answered by DJ 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Just growl like a pirate.....Arg!
2006-09-27 09:19:19 · answer #9 · answered by Nikki 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋