Re: Alveolar Trill Help

Jacob Weaver said:
>
> After browsing some of the messages on this listserv, I wondered if
> someone might be able
> to help - how exactly does one go about learning to produce an alveolar
> trill?  I am a native
> English speaker and have never been able to produce it, but my
> understanding is that I
> physically should be able to train myself somehow.
Phonetics is one of the few things that is best learned in person from an
expert (as opposed to studying printed material on the subject, or
figuring it out for yourself).

Lacking that, though, you might try to find a copy of Ken Pike's
_Phonemics_ which has some pretty detailed articulatory instructions for
most types of sounds you'll encounter in natlangs.

His instructions for the apical trills are as follows (p. 37):

"2a. Try to produce a tongue-tip trill in one of the following ways: Let
the tongue hang loosely, with the tongue tip a bit closer to the top of
the mouth than it would be in a position for [z]. Blow sharply over the
tip of the tongue.

"2b. Start with a flap produced in one of the ways given in the preceding
exercises. Once the flap is being produced easily, the student should
attempty to leave the tongue in the general flap position or bring it back
rapidly but loosely and relaxed to the same position from which it
flapped. If he feels a bit of vibration develop, he should continue to
work on the sound until he can get full control of the trill. Sharp bursts
of breath are more likely to start such a vibration than a normal breath
movement.

"2c. Once the sound has been made for the first time, the student should
continue practicing it in various positions in relation to vowels and
words until he can control it easily."


Pike adds the following footnote: "Many people find alveolar and uvular
trills among the hardest sounds for them to learn. The reason for this is
that the sounds must be made automatically; no placing of the tongue can
as such make certain the production of the sounds. The student can merely
approximate the general tongue position and experiment with mimicry until
he feels the first accidental vibrations. Once he does so, he can then by
assiduous practice gain control over them."


What Pike's saying in the footnote is that one way to learn phonetics is
to do it the way babies do: by babbling, and comparing your babbles to the
sounds other people are making.

Finally, I've noticed that some people do better learning their first
trills (especially bilabial and apical) if they start with the voiceless
ones.

-- Mark

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