Re: Rating Languages

On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > I don't know what your trouble with the Spanish r is.
> > It's the sound "tt" in butter if you say butter
> > EXTREMELY fast and change the tt to a dd.  But
> >
> <nod>  Yeah--it's frustrating knowing *how* it's produced, but being
> unable to *do* it for sustained periods of time.  In one of my classes a
> student was trying to figure out the trilled r, too, and a helpful
> Hispanic classmate was trilling these long, beautiful 5-second r's, and I
> could only listen in envy.  Mine sputters out after a second at best.
Most of the sounds I hear I can reproduce, but two escape me.

Try as I might, I cannot say the french "roi" without sounding like an
idiot, so I usually fake it with a slurred "Rah". Not authentic, to say the
least.

And I am physically incapable of trilling my R's. I get one "blip" and
that's it. I usually dont even try to fake it and replace the r with a d
sound.

Of course, in my defense, I could claim a handicap. When I was five I jumped
off a bed and bit my tongue clean off about as far back as is possible. I
dont notice it, having full taste and motion these 27 years later. But I've
often wondered if that incident had a lasting effect :)


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