How to pronounce Spanish tapped /r/

[@anonymous-st8zy]

The part from 5:00 is fascinating to me. When I read the words while you pronounce them, cadda versus cara, I really seem to hear a difference in the pronunciation of the consonant. But when I close my eyes and listen again without reading, the only difference is the quality of the vowels and the American 'dd' and Spanish 'r' sound the same... a really good illustration of the fact that the way in which sound is perceived is influenced by a lot more than just the actual sound waves. Reminds me of the McGurk effect. Thank you for your illuminating videos!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for the interesting comment. I'm glad you liked the video.

[@ImaginaryRussian]

Hola, soy rusa tratando de entender la diferencia entre el sonido "R" ruso y los "R"s españoles y estas explicaciones son absolutamente mejores de lo que pude encontrar (en ruso, inglés y español). Y también sirvió muy bien para explicárselo a mi hijo adolescente (ruso) con su acento americano perfecto. :) Muchas gracias!

[@Jchan700]

You're honestly one of the most patient people out here. Sometimes I get annoyed for you because people ask really basic questions you think they'd already know. But you still take time out of your day to explain these things slowly but still interesting enough that I don't get bored. Tysm!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@akatz29]

Another great video that helped clear up some details that I was missing.

[@tenminutespanish]

I'm very happy you liked the video.

[@dgoins6]

A great explanation. Thank you! I didn't realize that this is considered a beginner topic. I've been self studying Spanish for several years with annual immersion trips to Mexico and only recently have heard about the flapped or tapped r. That said, I took your advice replaced the r with dd on a few words that I had never really thought about. One was verduras. I practiced saying behrduddas several times then went to Forvo. I listened to several different native speakers say verduras and bingo! My pronunciation was much closer. I'll need to return to many words that I thought I was pronouncing correctly and retrain my speech. Thanks again!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you! I'm really glad you liked the video.

[@viktorg6911]

Thank you a lot, this helped a ton! :D

[@tenminutespanish]

Glad you liked it.

[@rougierar6454]

Creo q estos videos son muy explicativos y, siendo hablante nativa de español, las mejoras y correciones que haces a las explicaciones simplificadas son muy útiles

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias!!

[@saxonharries9033]

This channel is excellent, so glad I've found it

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@eve36368]

I very much appreciate your usage of double d instead of t because when I was trying to apply the "pot of tea" advice I heard elsewhere I was like OMG there's like 5 different sounds that fit this letter t, but yeah double d helps a lot with clarifying between glottal stops, h's derived from glottal stop renderings, etc. Also when I hear about British people trying to distinguish their accents from each other, the double d in ladder is used as a reference point, so OMG thank you for the double d discussion because I was getting lost before with the commonly given advice.

[@tenminutespanish]

Ya, these sounds vary quite a lot from dialect to dialect in English. Especially among British dialects.

[@someonerandom704]

I know that this may be a bit out of scope but is there any chance you could do a few videos on prosody? Not many other channels focus on teaching via descriptive linguistics, so naturally I think you'd do a great job at describing this. I've noticed that prosody can vary significantly by accent (compare Mexican Spanish to Venezuelan, for example). Additionally, showing off the rhythm of longer sentences could help illustrate many of the features you've already described.

[@tenminutespanish]

I will definitely add this to the queue of topics.

[@TheRoninSniper]

Your videos are really helpful and really easy to understand, keep doing what your doing

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@JeffrenCronford]

How do you pronounce the tapped r at the end of a word? Since a tapped r is done with the tongue tip gently touching the alveolar ridge very briefly (completely obstructing the airflow for less than half a second) and immediately falling to the mouth floor, then wouldn't the sound preceding the tapped r continue or bleed through? For example, how can "lugar" be pronounced properly in which a clear, audible tapped r sound is the last sound, to avoid saying "lugara"?

[@Jorge-xf9gs]

Stopping air flow right after saying [ɾ]. Just practice.

[@leiocerayt]

Thanks! I think I'll practice it once I'm alone.

[@someacolyte5626]

To me the d you’re using and the tapped r are pretty different sounding even though the oral posture is almost the same, and I’ve tried to hear it the same but I really don’t think it’s the same sound. Good video nonetheless

[@tenminutespanish]

I'm sorry that you don't hear it, but it's not just an idea I came up with one day. This is a well-trodden topic in comparative linguistics. I agree the two sounds aren't 100% identical, which is why I say "virtually the same" or something to that effect in the video.

[@Jchan700]

@@tenminutespanish thank you so much for saying it isn't 100% identical, I speak a chinese language called hokkien and our "L" sounds pretty similar too. But as a native speaker, english D Spanish R and Hokkien L sound different to me, but yet they sound so similar that a lot of people can't tell them apart.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@Jchan700 Well, there's definitely a difference between English tapped d,t and Spanish tapped r, but it is subtle. And for a native English speaker, this is a great way to train your tongue to do Spanish tapped r correctly.

[@someacolyte5626]

@@tenminutespanish the oral posture is almost exactly the same so I do see why its a good exercise

[@davicbertiz6977]

My native language and Spanish have the same r but I watch this video anyway. I love watching your videos because they're very informative.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you! What's your native language?

[@davicbertiz6977]

@@tenminutespanish Tagalog/ Filipino

[@tenminutespanish]

@@davicbertiz6977 Ah, very cool.

[@investmentgammler4550]

In my linguistics class, the professor stated that spanish /r/ and american /d/ are not the same sounds, but one is a "tap" and the other a "flap", but i can't remember which was which.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@investmentgammler4550 They're not 100% identical, but they're very close. Practically identical. I don't know the difference between a tap and a flap.

[@TheMarionetteKitty]

Amazing video, I've been trying to do this for ages. Another video I watched said the same, to replace the R with that D sound. What was interesting is when I read the word as I watched it, I couldn't hear the D sound. But when I looked away from the video and just listened, it became very apparent. Thank you for helping in my learning Spanish goal. EDIT: And I just made a bunch of flashcards with the dd replacing the r and now it looks like I'm studying Welsh.

[@tenminutespanish]

Glad this helped!

[@kennethschwartz898]

Hi Dan, I cannot trill my R yet. How should I pronounce an R at the beginning of a word. Should I do a flapped R or an American sounding R? Thank you

[@tenminutespanish]

Neither of those is correct, and I don't recommend getting in the habit of pronouncing some other sound. What you should do is learn to trill as soon as you can. With a week of daily practice (30 minutes a day) you should be able to figure it out.

[@Kirmo13]

I hear a clear distinction when you pronounce d and when you pronounce r

[@robjylol]

Any tips on words like "comprar?" Feels very difficult to say the second r either with a tap or trill -- my tongue after saying the "a" feels like it's nowhere in position to say either r, especially trilled

[@tenminutespanish]

Practice, practice, practice, practice. I'll bet if you set a timer and practiced for 15 minutes a day, you'd have it in a week or less.

[@bugsworth6942]

Do you think if I substituted trilled r or double rr (not sure what they’re called) with French trill? If you don’t know what that is it’s basically just your uvula flapping around to make a trill sound.

[@tenminutespanish]

French uvular trill sounds VERY different from Spanish taps and trills and will give you a HEAVY foreign accent.

[@CJPLA]

This is fascinating. Thank you. But - I having trouble because can’t help but hear native Spanish speakers pronounce the second “r” in “restaurate” with an English “r” sound (and not a tapped r). Should this second “r” truly be an English “dd” sound?

[@tenminutespanish]

Thanks for the feedback. I would love to hear that. Any way you could get a recording of that? Where are these natives from? The English retroflex r sound is not part of the inventory of standard Spanish. It is an allophone in some dialects, but not many. (I've heard Costa Ricans use it for word initial trilled r, not simple r between vowels.) It isn't a sound most native Spanish speakers ever pronounce.

[@CJPLA]

@@tenminutespanish Take a listen to this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/roiweod5dq-ohaM If you listen when the WHOLE word is read (not when broken into syllables), there is a English "r" sound on the second r. Do you hear it, or am I crazy?

[@tenminutespanish]

@@CJPLA You're not crazy. He's not tapping the r clearly when he pronounces the whole word. I wouldn't call it an English r, though. It's just a weak Spanish r. We do this in English with taped d or t, too. Lots of Americans don't pronounce the t clearly in "party" when speaking casually.

[@stevenperez4795]

is this the same as a simple non trill at the END of a word? Like is the r in paRa the same as the ending r in doctoR, mejoR, saltaR, volaR? im not refering to when people speak emphatically and trill the ending r, but when it is a non trill r at the end? Thanks.

[@tenminutespanish]

Yes, in those dialects that truly only tap word-final r.

[@kevinspanish7478]

It's been months for me of and on trying to produce the tapped and the thrilled R and I am getting nowhere. I'm from the Netherlands and can speak English just fine. But when going from, for example, 'duddo' to 'duro' my tongue goes back again to pronounce the r from the back of my mouth. I also don't understand when you say 'these are the same sounds'. Because 'duddo' and 'duro' sound pretty different to me. Advice?

[@tenminutespanish]

1) If you pronounce English 'duddo' and Spanish 'duro' very differently, you're not pronouncing English 'duddo' exactly the way we do in American English. Keep in mind there are different dialects of English, and they don't all pronounce 'dd' and 'tt' as taps. In particular, most dialects of British English pronounce these differently from how we do in the US. In this video I'm referring to a specific pronunciation, the one used in my dialect of American English. 2) Being unable to separate the retroflex English /r/ (or any other /r/ sound) from the anterior Spanish /r/ sound is a matter of habit. It's not anatomical or physiological. It's literally all in your mind, and there's nothing anyone but you can do about that. You have to figure out two things a) how to make your mouth make the sound b) how to consistently associate that sound with the /r/ phoneme. I don't know how to tell you how to do that.

[@edo7131]

I feel there's a subtle difference between the tap D and the spanish R in [pot'o tea] [para ti ] probably, the voice placement which is higher in spanish or lax vs tense sound with vowels.

[@tenminutespanish]

There is definitely a difference. They're not truly identical.

[@beaser9648]

Nice video. Say, can you do a video on Spanish words ending in -tl. I scrolled on Wikipedia under Mexican Spanish Phonetics (the dialect on what I base and sharpen my speech) and came across the phoneme [tɬ]. Now the -tl ending mostly comes from Nawatl loan words, so it's a rare ending. Now, when I pronounced the name, Quetzalcoatl, with [tɬ] in front of my dad, a native speaker, he corrected me by saying it ended more like [t͡l]. What do you think?

[@tenminutespanish]

100% of words in Mexican and Gutemalan words ending in -tl are borrowed directly from indigenous languages with little or no Spanish phonetic accommodation. So there are no Spanish rules of pronunciation governing them. Whatever pronunciation rules they have derive from indigenous languages.

[@beaser9648]

@@tenminutespanish OK, this helps. Thank you.

[@emilygates8119]

The hardest tapped rs in Spanish are the one between two consonants. Tres, entre- because the consonants before almost force you to have turbulence on the r . Is there a comparison you ca. make in English

[@emilygates8119]

After the ts are the hardest ^^

[@tenminutespanish]

When you have a hard time pronouncing r after t/d, it is almost always because you're articulating the t/d in the wrong place. T/d are pronounced with the tip of the tongue on the back of the upper front teeth, way down near the incisal edge if the tooth. Also, Spanish t/d are pronounced with very little tension and explosiveness, and with no aspiration.

[@sapphoenixthefirebird5063]

The incorrect pronunciation of the tapped R you used sounds quite similar to the Czech Ř-sound, as in "Dvořák".

[@Elias-xx5ff]

I just don’t understand how to do a D and T and make my mouth make the R sound without using my lips and curving them the way I do for English

[@tenminutespanish]

Do you curve your lips for d or t?

[@DanielDavis1973]

You missed two obvious examples in American english..butter and better.. it's generally intervocalic Ts and Ds but it can also precede or follow English R colored vowels (barter) in intervocalic positions since our R is almost a vowel in its realization

[@tenminutespanish]

I didn't overlook them, I excluded them on purpose. I don't use English examples with an r sound following the tapped d or t, because it confuses the point I'm trying to make.

[@DanielDavis1973]

@@tenminutespanish ah ok that makes sense.. most Spanish teachers I've heard usually use butter as the classic example which is why I mentioned them.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@DanielDavis1973 Yes, you are 100% correct. Most Spanish teachers use examples with English r or English l sound immediately following t or d. Butter, better, paddle, little, ladder etc. These examples aren't incorrect, but I think that having the consonant sound immediately following the alveolar tap confuses the issue for some students.

[@DanielDavis1973]

@@tenminutespanish I do have a related question if you don't mind me asking. Are there some Spanish dialects that realize the tapped R as more of an L sound? I swear I hear it this way from some native Spanish speakers and I'm not sure if my brain is just miss hearing it or miss processing it.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@DanielDavis1973 Absolutely! There are dialects in the Caribbean that realize tapped r as l (but intermittently, not consistently) and even trilled r as l in some positions.

[@cabarete2003]

Just the words "mira" and "pero" cause havoc for English speakers.

[@tenminutespanish]

Indeed.

[@MNtomaustin]

Now I am at a total loss for how to pronounce words that end in: er, or, ar, and ir. ie. divertir, cuidar, deber, tomador Any update would be appreciated.

[@tenminutespanish]

Syllable-final /r/ may be tapped or trilled. When these words are pronounced in isolation, at the end of a sentence, or preceding a word that starts with a consonant, the /r/ is syllable-final. I talk about that /r/ in these two videos. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b328mJ54j9l2ldk kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYCYfqhogtyHZs0

[@fbfusurjajarjr9295]

i can make that sound but the problem is that it isnt smooth

[@tenminutespanish]

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice.

[@cyka6blat989]

Hey is the Spanish tapped /r/ after a “c” supposed to sound like the French r sound or northern central Spain j?

[@tenminutespanish]

No, not at all. Spanish /r/ never makes that sound.

[@cyka6blat989]

@@tenminutespanish do you why it might sound like that?

[@tenminutespanish]

@@cyka6blat989 I've never heard anyone native Spanish speaker of any accent or dialect pronounce it that way. Who did you hear pronounce it that way?

[@cyka6blat989]

@@tenminutespanish No, I am the one producing the noise and I notice that when I pronounce it I kind of sounds like those sounds although I’m probably mispronouncing it

[@shannimonet]

This is the closest i have ever went to saying hombre right 😭 thank you

[@tenminutespanish]

I'm so happy to hear that! With practice you'll just get better and better.

[@shannimonet]

@@tenminutespanish I most definitely will 🥰