Andrew (aindreas) wrote in linguaphiles,
Andrew
aindreas
linguaphiles

Spanish /r/ after consonants

Here's the thing. I can roll my R in Spanish, or at least produce a makeshift approximation. But when it's a word or series of words where a consonant precedes, I can't do it. Los ríos, Enrique, alrededor etc. I have to make a pause it my speech so it basically sounds like los-uh ríos or en-uh-rique. Has anyone else had this problem? Maybe I'm making the sound incorrectly in the first place? I uploaded a recording of me saying tierra, carro, zorro so you can hear I pronounce it when it's covered by vowels. I'm new to Google Docs, so let me know if there are problems getting to the file. Thoughts? I'm a stickler for good pronunciation and this has really been bugging me lately.

A different related question: what's the difference between how Spaniards and Latin Americans pronounce their R? The great majority of my exposure being from Mexicans and South Americans, I feel like they really emphasize the R even if it's not doubled, at the beginning of words like raro, or revolución. But all my professors here at uni are Spanish, and sometimes even when they say RR it sounds like it's swallowed up, for lack of a better word. Just very soft I guess. Can anyone comment on this?
Tags: pronunciation, spanish
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