Turkish r (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Turkish r
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

ivyandroses
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Studies: French, Russian

Message 1 of 3

28 March 2015 at 6:44am | IP Logged

I'm a native English speaker and I'm learning Turkish through Duolingo. I've only been
doing it for about a week. I'm trying to figure out how I should pronounce my r's. Based
on the Duolingo audio, it sounds like a very short, brief trill, kind of like how the
Scottish say it. But I've heard Turkish speakers also claim it's pronounced just like in
English (I guess maybe it depends on the dialect of English, because I have heard British
English speakers who roll their r's just a little bit.) Anyways, I definitely don't hear
a flat "r" there, but it doesn't sound as strong as the Spanish trill either.
Long story short, how should I practice my Turkish r's?
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tarvos
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Message 2 of 3

28 March 2015 at 8:00am | IP Logged

It's a tap, as far as I know. Spanish has both the tap and the trill. If you speak
Russian, compare it to the way the Russians pronounce р. So, try to trill, but instead of
letting the sound roll, hit your alveolum just once.

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vonPeterhof
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Speaks: Russian*, English^C2, Japanese, German
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Message 3 of 3

28 March 2015 at 10:03am | IP Logged

Yavuz, Handan; Balcı, Ayla (2011), Turkish Phonology and Morphology, page 25:

Yavuz & Balcı (2011:25) wrote:

Turkish 'r', an alveolar flap /ɾ/, is realized differently depending on the position of 'r' within a word. Compare the 'r's in the following words, 'ara', 'rüya', 'bir'. Notice that the /ɾ/ in each word is different. The /ɾ/ in 'ara' is a voiced alveolar flap. In words such as 'rüya', 'resim', 'renk', /ɾ/ is formed with a narrow passage between the tongue and the alveolar ridge. As the airflow is forced through this narrow passage, frication occurs. Thus, word-initial /ɾ/ is fricated and described as 'voiced fricated alveolar flap' symbolized as [ɾ̝]. In word-final position, the /ɾ/ is fricated also. But in word-final position, the frication is voiceless. Say the words 'bir', 'fleker', 'kar'. Notice that if you hold /ɾ/ long enough you could hear a sound like a whistle. That sound is frication and it is voiceless. The IPA symbol for voiceless fricated alveolar flap is [ɾ̝̊].

The fricated pronunciations are probably what the Turkish speakers you've talked to were referring to (although I've heard others insist that most Turkish speakers don't hear any difference between the realizations of 'r'). And they can sometimes sound somewhat similar to the standard English pronunciations of the letter "r". I remember the female speaker from the Turkish Pimsleur course had a particularly strong case of this. She also seemed to fricate the "r" in "sonra", even though it's not on the margin of the word.

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