Can I learn to roll my R's?

Question

Whenever I try to say words like perro or arroyo, I sound like I'm telling a pirate joke. I can identify the sound I'm supposed to make and I've been told how my tongue is supposed to move, but I can't seem to reproduce the sound at all. It's just embarrassing.

It may be that part of my problem is with the letter r as it's spoken in Spanish. People who I communicate with sometimes have difficulty with my pronunciation of words that have single rs such as aire.

Is there a solution to my problem or will I have to live with this particular speech impediment?

Answer 1

When I started learning Spanish in high school, I was not able to roll my r's. I learned over a weekend by practicing almost constantly (perhaps to the annoyance of some of those around me).

The movement of the tongue when pronouncing the single r is the same as when you pronounce the t in "water". I practiced by making that sound by itself, then trying to make it continue (rolling).

I know someone else who went through third year college Spanish courses without being able to roll the r, then slowly learned over the course of a semester spent abroad in Mexico by practicing repeatedly while walking to class. I know others who got their college Spanish degrees without ever learning.

Petruza's answer is right in that it's not a barrier to communication, and that tongue twister is great practice. But it certainly won't sound quite right; you might get some weird looks from native speakers.

Answer 2

I'm no expert, but I've found the following links (try "ejercicios pronunciacion r" in your search engine) , which might help:

Some simple exercises
Lots of exercises

By the way, the dificulty to pronounce the R, is called "rotacismo"

Answer 3

I wouldn't say you have a problem, if your goal is to communicate in Spanish, you'll be fine.
If what you want is have the best pronunciation possible, then yes, learning to roll you rr, and even pronouncing the regular r may be important.
I guess you should get a native speaker or someone who can already do it and tutor you and try many times to imitate them until you get it right.

There's a tongue-twister that helps with rolling the rr:

Erre con erre guitarra,
erre con erre barril,
mira qué rápido ruedan
las ruedas del ferrocarril.

Remember that r in the initial position of a word is also rolled as an rr.

And also you have to pay attention to where does the tongue touch the palate when pronouncing it, in the english r you touch the roof of the palate and your molars, and in the spanish r and rr you touch the alveolar ridge with the tip of the tongue.

Answer 4

Some people will tell you that if you can't do a Spanish 'r' then you will never be able to.

However, I do know people that have learned and have gone from not being able to do it at all, to being able to do it quite convincingly.

That being said, I also know someone who speaks with a slight lisp in English and even though she speaks perfect Spanish and has for many years, she still can not do a Spanish 'r' to save her life.

IMO I would say that it is not impossible to learn.

If you want to practice getting it right, you need to listen to it a lot and practice aloud. Even if you can get a similar sound for example a japanese 'r', this IMO sounds a lot better than an English 'r'

Answer 5

There are various approaches which speech therapists would suggest, but what I've observed (as someone who for many years couldn't roll an r) is that it's a lot easier when singing, probably because there's more air flow or more conscious control of air flow than when speaking. Having observed that in myself, I started noticing that native speakers when singing will sometimes roll an r which is supposed to be only flapped. So you could try karaoke or singing along to Spanish-language songs in the privacy of your own home.

Answer 6

This is anecdotical, not an aswer, but might be interesting info:

In a few regions (e.g. some inland parts of Argentina) it's pronounced more like a 'ye' (sort of 'sh'). For example, listen the beginning of this speech of ex-president from Argentina, C. S. Menem:

... los recursos que actualmente cuenta nuestro país en materia de salud con un compromiso renovador...