Personally I've always had difficulty making my uvular trill become an
approximant or fricative.... unless I'm careful either seems to quickly
become a trill. *sigh* It sounds like a motor is back there... and an
unhealthy one at that. Maybe with some water in the fuel tank.
>
> Interesting. And here I have to work hard to achieve it. I'm not happy
> with approximations; it has to sound like a little motor in the back
> of your
> throat. I find I can produce it best before back vowels, when the
> back of
> my tongue is relaxed and lowered to accommodate the tip of the uvula. It
> vanishes immediately if I raise my tongue to pronounce a front vowel.
> Then
> it becomes an approximate. I'm very interested in all of this,
> because I'm
> thinking of giving Menarilihs a uvular trill that is very pronounced.