"r sound" in British/American english

RS   Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:22 am GMT
Hi all,
My question is about the phonetics (tongue position etc.) for the "r" sound among native speakers of English. I am an almost-native speaker, if there is any such thing - I started speaking english during my teenage years after having studied it since early childhood in school in India, and then moved to US at the age of 21. I am 28 now. I speak English properly and fluently and can be mistaken for an american briefly until some shades of accent show up in certain words.
I notice that the "r sound" in General American English is sort of complex. I did some research on internet and understood that it is a retroflex or bunched and that it is pronounced by curling your tongue towards the back of the mouth fully such that the tip of the toungue does not touch the roof of the mouth (http://www.virtual.le.ucr.ac.cr/pronunciation/pronunc.html). But some sites briefly mentioned that the tip of the toungue touches the back of alveolar ridge (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=883444). So there is some discrepancy there. What is the correct way? They do sound a little bit different.
I also think there are multiple r sounds in General American, as when I try to pronunce the r sound such that the tip does not touch the roof of mouth, then I find it really hard to make the sound when "r" is embedded between 2 vowel sounds. For example, in pharse "only read", r sound is embedded between a vowel sound generated from "y", and vowel sound from "ea". The toungue has to be in front position for both these sounds. So curling the tongue back from "y" to make the r sound and then pulling it to the front of the mouth for the next vowel sound is really difficult. But I am able to do it fine if I make the tip of the tongue touch the roof for r sound as then I am not fully curling the tongue back for "r". Same is the case when making the r sound in the word "experience". These example makes me beleive there are 2 r sounds in General American. Could some native speaker of English clarify this?
I also came to know that some native speakers (such as Scots) pronounce r differently and that is called a "trilled r", which is pronounced by touching the tip of the tongue to the back of the alveolar ridge. But I am interested only in General American and RP English (from England and not from whole of UK), where I think "r" sound is pronounced in the same manner. Is that correct?
Please note that my question(s) is not about rhoticity (which is the tendency of English speakers to drop the r sound in some words), but rather about the "r sound" whenever it is pronounced in English.
In short, if some native speaker could clarify all the "r" sounds in General American or standard British English, that would be really helpful.

Thanks!
RS

PS: By General American, I mean any educated American speech.
By standard British English, I mean any educated English (from England) speech.
Uriel   Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:29 pm GMT
The tongue does not touch the roof of your mouth in an American R.
Rick Johnson   Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:25 pm GMT
I'm not aware of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth, in an R, in any forms of spoken English.
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:04 pm GMT
When I enunciate my Rs my tongue doesn't have time to touch my soft palate....it's too busy vibrating like hell.
RS   Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:02 am GMT
Thanks for the responses. Having spent sometime trying to track movement of my tongue with a flash light and a mirror, I can see that the "tip" of the tongue does not really touch the soft palate, but the sides of the tongue end up touching the molars on the upper teeth and sides of the upper gum (as the tongue is totally curled backwards, with the bottom of the tongue facing the roof of the mouth). The tip of the tongue is very close to touching the soft palate but does not quite touch it, and the sound of "r" comes out if the voice is made from the throat with tongue in the above position. Do I sound right?
But I guess the question is, how far back do you curl the tongue. I think in standard English accent and American accent, tongue is curled as far back as possible (to the soft palate) whenever r is pronounced. That makes it difficult to pronunce words where "r" sound is embedded between 2 sounds where the tongue is in front (between the teeth or such). For those sounds its too much work to curl the tongue totally backwards just for the "r". Such as example from earlier post about pharse "only read" or "experience". Only if the tongue does not need to curled so far and the "r" sound is made by slightly curling the tongue to the alveolar ridge, those words would be much easier to pronounce. Is this the technique used in Gen American and standard British to pronunce such cases. Any comment on this would help.
Damian from Edinburgh, my guess is that you being from scotland, dont curl the tongue as far back as americans. You may be curling the tongue just a bit to the alveolar ridge and vibrating the tongue as the air comes out from the throat, right?

Any help is appreciated!
RS
Damian in Edinburrrrgh   Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:59 am GMT
RS: Spot on......from Scotland......arrround the rrrugged rrrock the rrrragged rrrrascal rrran. Rrrrrolled to perrrrfection.

I'm on a tea brrreak rrrright now.
RS   Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:07 am GMT
Would some native speaker comment on my "r" sound embedded between vowel sounds question? Damian, thanks for your last comment.
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But I guess the question is, how far back do you curl the tongue. I think in standard English accent and American accent, tongue is curled as far back as possible (to the soft palate) whenever r is pronounced. That makes it difficult to pronunce words where "r" sound is embedded between 2 sounds where the tongue is in front (between the teeth or such). For those sounds its too much work to curl the tongue totally backwards just for the "r". Such as example from earlier post about pharse "only read" or "experience". Only if the tongue does not need to curled so far and the "r" sound is made by slightly curling the tongue to the alveolar ridge, those words would be much easier to pronounce. Is this the technique used in Gen American and standard British to pronunce such cases. Any comment on this would help.
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Thomas   Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:09 am GMT
As a related question, are there any minimal pairs for /3`/ and /@`/?
Uriel   Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:36 am GMT
Your tongue position may be exaggerated. I can say "only read" with minimal tongue pullback.
Lazar   Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:08 am GMT
<<As a related question, are there any minimal pairs for /3`/ and /@`/?>>

No; the convention is just to use [3`] for stressed syllables and [@`] for unstressed syllables. It parallels the use of stressed [V] versus unstressed [@].
Heehee   Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:54 pm GMT
Aaah, I love the Scottish accents... that's why I'm applying to Edinburgh and Glasgow unis!! ^.~
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:59 pm GMT
**I'm applying to Edinburgh and Glasgow unis!! **

Good for you! We promise you one really good time and I'm glad you got the order of preference right.... although Glasgow can be one fun city as well...just remember to bring a phrasebook with you if you decide to "downgrade" a wee bit :-)
Guest   Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:28 am GMT
i cant say the r sound and im an american born, white man at 26. I need help its really embarassing.
Travis   Mon Jan 29, 2007 9:36 am GMT
>>PS: By General American, I mean any educated American speech. <<

Just what do you mean by "educated" here? I would have to consider myself "educated", and yet what I speak definitely would not be considered to be General American (think significant differences phonologically and some notable differences syntactically). In the case of /r/, for instance, I normally use a uvular approximant for /r/ (or syllabically for /@r/) except when after a coronal or (usually) a labial, where then I use a somewhat more "normal" laminal postalveolar approximant. However, such is most definitely *not* a General American-type feature, to say the very least.

The thing is that while many might use "General American" as a general catch-all category for any American speech variety which is not thought of as specifically marked in nature, more properly it refers to a much more specific standard which dialects tend to be closer to or further from. However, it today is exemplified by far most closely by western American NAE dialects outside the influence of the California Vowel Shift besides that those are generally cot-caught-merged while General American proper is cot-caught-unmerged. Even though it is stereotypically associated with the Midwest, much of the Midwest proper today is under the influence of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and Canadian Raising to varying degrees, which are both significant non-GA features, and some of the more northern parts of the Midwest (Chicagoland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, the Upper Peninsula) have non-negligible substratum features present which never would have been GA-like at all.
DX   Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:45 pm GMT
http://venus.unive.it/canipa/pdf/EPs_26_English_R.pdf here it says that the american r isn't actually a retroflex and is not produced as RS wrote: " that it is pronounced by curling your tongue towards the back of the mouth fully ".

Instead it says tha the american r is a prevelar approximant with a very slight raising of the tip of the tongue towards the postalveolar region. So it is actually the dorsum of the tongue doing the "job", not the tip of the tongue. It also says that the brittish r, on the other hand, is pronounced with the tip of the tongue approaching the postalveolar region. (The pictures on the pdf are more informative, I believe)

Native speakers: which description is correct/ more accured (for your speech)?