Make the American R sound!

Hey, guys, it's Hadar. And this is the accent's way, your way to finding clarity, confidence and freedom in English. And finally today, we are going to talk about the R. As many of you have requested, the R sound, one of the more challenging sounds in American English because the R sound doesn't exist, I think, in any language but English. So let's learn how to pronounce that R sound. So in your language, you may substitute the R sound with a different sound that is perceived as the R. It could be a trilled R. It could be an R that is produced in the throat or G. Okay? So what you need to remember is no matter what you do currently, to pronounce your R, you need to shift it towards this new, different sound that is produced with the tongue and the lips. Now let me get more specific. To make the R sound, the tongue has to be in the middle of the mouth. The tip of the tongue should not be touching anything. So if you're used to making an R like this, you feel the tip of the tongue touching the upper palate. If you're used to doing in the back, then the back of the tongue is touching the uvula or the soft palate, okay? So there is no true contact when you make the American R, not in the back and not in the front part of the tongue. The only contact you have is here in the sides of the tongue because the sides touch the sides of the teeth, okay? So the body of the tongue retracts and the sides of the tongue tight touch the insides of the teeth, sort of. The tongue is sort of pushing the teeth from the inside. Now there's a lot of tension in the body of the tongue. Think of it like a fist that you clench, okay? It looks the same whether it's loose or clenched, okay? So that's what happens inside your tongue. The tongue curls back, okay. And pulls back. But you also tense it up as if you clench your fist. To that, you add the tension of the lips, so the lips round, especially when the R appears at the beginning of words. Run. Run. If you turn the sound off and you look at my lips, it's going to sound like I'm saying one. And that's good because it should sound like one. One. It should look like one. But the tension of the tongue creates that R R sound. So basically, it's a W sound mixed with this tense R. Okay? I like to think of it as if it's a W with a J sound or a W with an L sound. Without touching the Upper palate. Let's try it in a few words. Run. Red. Now, if you can hold out the R, you're probably doing it right. And if you can't, if it's on something like run, okay, then you're probably going to your natural neutral pronunciation. Red. Right. So this is the strong R. An R that appears at the beginning of a word or before a vowel. Okay. This is an easier R to make. We're going to focus on that today. We're not going to talk about Rs at the end of words like car or where. We're going to talk about it in another video. So if you still find it impossible to make, I'm going to give you two ways to go about it. Let's begin with the L sound. L. To make the L, the tip of the tongue goes up to touch the upper palate, right? So as you pronounce the L and you hold out the sound, I want you to pull your tongue slowly inside, Okay? So you pull it in, right? And then the tongue sits there in the middle. Okay? So now you're more aware of what your tongue is doing and where it's located. So you pull the tongue into the middle of the mouth. And then when it's in the middle and of course, the tip of the tongue is not touching anything and you're able to hold it out, then I want you to play with the body of the tongue. It's like doing those fine tunings until you reach that perfect sound. Think of your tongue as one big piece of chewing gum. And you want to play around with it inside your mouth until you feel that tense quality as you curl your tongue in the back. The tip of the tongue is pointing forward, almost trying to reach the back part of your mouth, the throat. And once you get that nice, straight, strong sound, L, you round your lips. Okay? You can put your finger here to make sure that the lips push forward. Lure. And you're not doing something funny like lure. Okay? You don't want to create tension here. It's about pushing the lips forward. L. Then you can shift to the word L. Red. L. Find the sound, play around with it in your mouth. Run. Right. Another little tip that you can think about is think of a dog's bark. How does a dog bark? Ruff. Rr. You hear that? That's an R sound. Ruff. Connect to your inner animal. Ruff. Run. Red. Okay, that's another way to go about it. And one last tip. Instead of starting with an L sound, start with a J sound to make the sound, the tongue touches the upper palate and you hear these vibrations. So as you pronounce the pull the tongue in again. The tongue is already all the way back there, very close to the R sound when you pronounce the so. So you pull it in a bit, right? And make sure that the sides touch the insides of the teeth. You can even bite on your tongue to kind of like mark it, to recognize where the sides of the tongue are. Sometimes we're not even aware of what's going on there. So you can bite on your tongue to feel the sides of your tongue. Alright, so these are a few options for you to play around with as you're trying to reach that nice strong R sound. Once you recognize the R sound, hold it out when you practice it in words and drill it in many, many words over and over again until you get used to the new pronunciation. It's okay if you don't use it in conversation yet. Use it in practice and maybe you can read out loud something, maybe. Making sure that you're using all the R's correctly, remember to round your lips and pull the tongue in. And as you read it, hold out each R to make sure that you're pronouncing it accurately. All right. I will release more videos about the R sound because I have a lot more to say about it, but I think that's a good start, so practice it. Please let me know if you have any more questions. And that's it. Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet. Thank you for watching and I will see you next week in the next video. Bye.