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Spanish pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| That_Guy Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7099 days ago 74 posts - 87 votes  Studies: Hindi, English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 30 10 September 2005 at 2:10am | IP Logged |
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I don't know if it's just me, but I seem to notice that I, and many other people who speak Spanish as a second language have difficulty pronouncing the letter R when it precedes a consonant. For example, in the phase, "Para servirle" (at your service) the R preceding the V and the R preceding the L are quite difficult for me to pronounce. Even one of my high shcool Spanish teachers had difficulty pronouncing it and would usually just 'give up' and pronounce the R as in English. If anyone has anything else to add, I'd be happy to hear it.
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| timinstl Triglot Groupie United States timsviajes.com Joined 7118 days ago 88 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Italian, Mandarin | Message 2 of 30 10 September 2005 at 11:29am | IP Logged |
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I have trouble saying "red" which means network. I work for Cingular Wireless and often help Latinos. When trying to explain that TDMA is a different network than GSM, I have to say "Su telefono es uno que funciona en la red TDMA y el servicio que ofrecemos ahora es GSM. Son differentes redes...redes...rrredes."
Translation: Your phone is one that works off of the TDMA network and we are now using GSM. They are different Networks." 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| omicron Senior Member United States Joined 7122 days ago 125 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 30 10 September 2005 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
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If you haven't found it yet, there is an older thread you might find useful to read :
"How did you learn to roll your Rs?". 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| That_Guy Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7099 days ago 74 posts - 87 votes Studies: Hindi, English*, Spanish | Message 4 of 30 10 September 2005 at 2:26pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, I saw that thread, but that doesn't seem to answer my question. I have no problem whatsoever with rolling my R's in Spanish, it's the single R that comes before a consonant that presents some difficulty. For example, a single R before the Spanish L. Edited by That_Guy on 10 September 2005 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| omicron Senior Member United States Joined 7122 days ago 125 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 30 10 September 2005 at 5:15pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know much Spanish, but I can describe how I attacked the problem in Russian. (As I was taught, an R in the initial position, Rooski, is similar to Spanish RR, whereas R in the middle of a word, such as gorod, is shorter and more similar to the single Spanish R).
I couldn't trill my R's at all to begin with, so I just sat around making machine-gun sounds until I could. At that point I could do a long trill, but not a short one; not even short enough to be a normal trill. I found that I had to really exaggerate a long trill quite a bit before I could do them shorter. So I practiced Rrrrrrrroooski over and over, gradually shortening it down to one trill. And then gorrrrrrrod, gradually shortening it down to a 'half-trill'. I also found it was easier or harder depending on the vowels involved. It was relatively easy to say "oh-rr-oh", harder to say "ah-rr-ah", and much harder to say "ee-rr-ee". So I practiced these as well, going from easy to hard. If I was botching "ah-rr-ah", I'd back up to "oh-rr-oh" and gradually turn it into "ah-rr-ah". Just taking a stab at your servirle example, I'd tackle it first with easier vowels and really exaggerated trilled r's : sorrrrrr-vorrrrrr-lay I'd work on that until I got a decent transition from rrrrr to v and from rrrrr to l, with the 'easy' vowel. Then I'd start working on harder vowels, gradually transforming them: sahrrrrr-vahrrrrr-lay sehrrrrr-vehrrrrr-lay sehrrrrr-veerrrrr-lay Once I'd got reasonably good transitions from really exagerated rrrrr's to the following consonant using the right vowel sounds, I'd work on shortening the rrrrrr down to a single r. I've just been messing with this. It's taken a good twenty minutes to get a decent approximation, and I still need much work on the Spanish b/v sound so it's by no means perfect, but it doesn't suck as bad as when I started, and the r's are no longer trilled like rr. Anyway, it's worth a shot. It took me two or three weeks with Russian before it became normal and I no longer had to practice the exaggerated r's. Edited by omicron on 10 September 2005 at 5:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7192 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 30 11 September 2005 at 7:45am | IP Logged |
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The difficulty with intermediate pronounciation, I think, are multiple native sounds strung together. For example, I used to have difficulty spitting out restaurante in normal speed conversation. It was the open au sound followed by the Spanish r.
A useful exercise would be to come up with sentences that use some of your difficult words and unusually paced words, such as: Hay similitudes entre los dos restaurantes. Es una certidumbre que habrá remordimiento. Say the sentence slowly, but perfectly, then gradually speed up. Have about ten to twenty difficult sentences that you can recite by memory and say them again and again until you can say them with the same accent and speed as a Mexican after three cups of coffee. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7239 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 7 of 30 11 September 2005 at 9:37pm | IP Logged |
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Well, you might try something like this for a word like "para"... first say "pala" several times. This will get you used to getting your tongue in the right place. Then doing the same general motion, try to say "para".
And here's the way pimsleur does it (I think it works best with an 'r' a the beginning): th-restaurante, th-restaurante, restaurante. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cbashara Senior Member United States adventuresinspanish. Joined 7130 days ago 186 posts - 188 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 30 13 September 2005 at 11:22am | IP Logged |
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All I can say is practice, practice, practice. I have a very intermediate accent. It's not horrific, but it really needs some work in certain areas. The r and rr is one that gives me quite a bit of trouble. So, when ever I am alone (in traffic, shower, whatever) I just practice over and over and over those words that are giving me trouble and you know what? It actually helps! I will alternate between "easier" words and the more difficult ones like you mentioned. It really works! I like what some one said earlier about making machine-gun sounds! So true!
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