I've been speaking Spanish for 12 years but actually gave up on the rr and just accepted I had a speech impediment 😅Came back to it recently because I also need it for Arabic and found this video really helpful. Funnily enough, I can now do it, but only if I sing the word! I think this helps me control the airflow - if I try to trill normally, I still seem to be forcing the air too hard. I'll keep practicing!
I empathize with you. I haven't spoken Spanish for real in like 12 or more years. I am trying to pick it back up again with my new job. Lord help us all! Please BTW thank you for this video! Blessings to you!
Does your speech impediment bother you now with the foreign language? I have one too, and when my anxiety kicks in, everything goes crazy. I was hoping that Spanish would make a difference.
This "ara" trick must be some kind of linguistic black magic bc as of writing this comment it's been ~1 hour since i googled how to roll my R's and as someone who has never been able to do it their whole life (I'm 22) your ara trick is starting to give me the tiniest of micro-trills. I'll definitely keep this up
As a Spanish speaker I can confirm similar exercises are used when we're learning to speak properly as a toddler or primary student. At school, in Castellano classes they spent hours teaching the position of the tongue and lips, believe it or not even for Spanish speakers is tricky. More importantly, this is how we spot non-spanish speakers we can hear the accent if they can't use the 'r'.
I came here after starting duolingo and being unable to roll my r. Your tips helped make sense of what was going on in my mouth but I still couldn't quite put it together. The whole reason I am learning Spanish is because I lost my 19 year old son in April and he was fluent in Spanish. I am doing it to honor him. As I sat here trying your tricks, I looked up and said "Help me honey. What am I doing wrong?" A couple more tries and I was doing it!! Between your tips and a little help from my angel, I have made more progress in a half hour than I have in weeks!
@@Currently_Asleep_ZzZzoh I have a tip! Put water in your mouth and gurgle it around. This should help you move your tongue like how you’re supposed to when you roll your r’s. :) hope this helps!
@@HayItsRhy For me, my tongue goes down and out of the way of the water when I gargle, but I’ve learned you’re supposed to have the tip of your tongue near your top teeth… how are you gargling, exactly?
This video is a bit old now but I just wanted to say that your “ara” trick is what got me to finally start rolling! I was doing the whisper “ara” all day for only a day and already got a small roll. I even was able to do it with the word “arriba”. After the whisper I’ve gradually brought the volume up until now I have the voice included! I can say those words and others like “carro” no problem. The er words like “perro” still present trouble for me so I’m still practicing a lot every day. After watching a ton of videos I just wanted to thank you for your tips that helped!
That’s awesome ! It’s so funny how it sometimes takes forever and then something clicks and it’s not nearly as hard as it was. It’s hard to train our mouths to make new sounds - I’m glad my video could help. Keep it up 👍
@@BreakthroughSpanish I’m now already able to do er sounds such as “erre” and “perro”, so I’m quickly improving. Apparently I was trying too hard before and the skill was on the tip of my tongue, no pun intended
I've been learning Spanish for 8 years, and I was never able to pronounce the r or rr correctly. At some point, I got frustrated and simply "accepted my fate". Now I am a Spanish student at university preparing for the intake exam to become a conference interpreter. Of course with this job I can't have a bad pronunciation. So this is my motivation to get back to practicing my r. I have 4 months till the exam, I hope I will make it
As a native speaker, the rolling r's came naturally as a toddler. Your technical advice is outstanding and exactly how I roll the r's. Now, when people ask me how I make the sound, I can explain it instead of just demonstrating it. Thank you!
This is very well explained. One factor that makes it unusual for English speakers, is that the 'r' in English is a soft sound, sometimes almost inaudible, and never rolled. I am half Spanish and English, and when I was a young boy I was taught to say the following Spanish sentence by my cousins to help with "rolling" the Rs (apical-alveolar trill) El perro de San Roque no tiene rabo, porque Ramón Ramírez se lo ha cortado. My advice is, as well as following the tips in this video, to focus on the sound production with a bit of forced air explusion at the same time, at least until the trill becomes easy and natural to produce. Eventually, you'll be able to let it "roll off your tongue". This requires concentration and effort at the time of producing the sound, but it will get easier and more natural over time. Listen to how Spanish people say it and imitate the sound as close as possible. Not all Spanish speakers choose to make the 'R'' sound as strong as others, as there are regional variations, but it's always clearly audible. An often confusing thing for Spanish speakers is when they don't hear the clear "R" sound at all, because that could sound like another word, a different verb conjugation or a nonsensical word. So, effort in making both the R sounds is important to be clearly understood in conversations. Have fun with it, it's a great sound really!
I actually already speak to languages that need that rolled “r”: Ukrainian and Russian, but could never do it. Now when I decided to learn Spanish, I it’s finally time for it, though I know there some difference to them. (I saw how Chinese people on TikTok learned it simply because some Russian song got viral and got embarrassed)
I started my duolingo Spanish journey a couple a weeks ago. It was almost derailed because I could not roll my R's to save my life. This video has restored my hopes. I can't roll my R's at will yet But after a couple of days of practice while driving to and from work, I've been able to bang out a few R rolls. From 0 to a few has me thinking, there's still hope out there for me yet. Thank you so much for your simple break down.
This was the best explanation of why it's difficult for English speakers to roll the r's. I never would have guessed tongue placement on the preceding letters would be a factor. A little late on commenting, but thank you so much for this.
58 years old and have never been able to roll r’s. The suggestion to take the sound out and repeat the given exercise over and over had me trilling, including within Spanish words, in minutes. 🎉 I may or may not have done a little happy dance in my kitchen. I’ll have to keep practicing a long while for it to become second nature, but it’s great to know I *can* do it. Grateful you shared this! Will bookmark!
Began learning Spanish decades ago. Have lived in 3 Spanish speaking counties for years at a time. My accent and my lack of rolling rs pegs me as a non-native speaker. Most people have been kind, remarking that I am good at speaking the language. After attempting to roll the r and failing have resigned myself to just concentrate on learning vocabulary. Have stopped being concerned.
It really helped me how you mentioned that we need to be using the Spanish consonants rather than English consonants! While I can't make the RR sound by itself, I can make a sound that almost passes as RR when it's in a word. I will keep practicing. I'm a nursing student and I am relearning spanish since there are spanish-speaking patients at the hospital. Thanks for your helpful video!
Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!!! I am 38 years old and have never been able to do this. I figured I would never be able to do it. BUT, with your video I figured it out. WOW! No joke! I can do it now. Thank you so much for this video. I just ran across it looking for something else and decided to click on it. I'm so glad I did. 😂
Out of all the videos out there, this is the only video that had me trilling within 15 minutes of practicing! That "ara" exercise really works! Also, I love how you explain it's not just about relaxing your tongue and how other consonants can affect how you trill; I haven't seen any other person explain that in their videos. I'm almost 30 and I get made fun of from my family that I still don't know how to roll my r's. You gave me hope that I can do it. Thank you so much!!
I'm Spanish but I'm always interested in phonetics. The way you explain everything feels super useful. And made me extra aware of my tongue positioning when speaking Spanish versus English. Like the "L" and chaining those sounds with the R. It's impossible to say things correctly! No wonder some people have a really hard time with the Spanish R. Great video!
One of my professors once told me that I just speak with an Argentinian accent😅 My rr sounds have never been reliable, throughout the ~15 years I've been speaking Spanish. I hugely appreciate your ability to get back to basics!
From 2:25 to 4:25! Adjusting the consonants from the English pronunciation to the Spanish seems to be the key for me. That is the part of this video that is most helpful to me, thanks!! (Also... three to six months? I've been studying and practicing for two years, and I think I'm *starting* to get there with rolling my rrrrr's!!) Just don't give up! Even if you never get there - there's more to learning and speaking another language than the pronunciation of a single consonant sound. Imo.
When i was younger, i could easily pronounce the rr sound since I could speak slovene (I'm half french half slovene) but as i grew up(in France), and maybe because I've learnt to speak japanese in which the rr sound doesn't exist, it has become difficult to pronounce the rr sound even though i can easily pronounce the r sound. And here I am learning spanish and trying to pronounce the rr correctly again. Thank you for your explanation, it's really helpful.
I think I've tried something like 4 different 'how to roll your r's' videos on RU-vid, and this was the only one that actually worked for me. It took time, but I can finally roll my r's. Thank you.
Today I finally got it! I have been practicing daily for around 5 weeks or so , but have been wishing for this since I was a kid. I wished for it so much and it felt impossible. This video was the one that taught me to do the right thing to finally be able to trill! Muchísimas gracias Breakthrough Spanish !!!!
I only started taking up the practice recently. I have absolutely zero patience and have been binging videos and sounding like a lunatic trying to get this down... it wasn't until that very last tip at the end with car+ro and your brain wanting to put the sounds together that BANG rolled. I'll have to practice a ton to get it fluid and under my control, but now that I know the method works I'm super jazzed to try it. Thank you!
This is by far one of the most effective videos I watched. The 'ara' trick worked very fast after a few trials, surprisingly, and adding the air pressure even made it better to get a few more rolls. I still can't keep it as long as I want, but thank you for this great video.
Just wanted to say , thank you ..The things you are saying are actually resonating very well. I speak French and Farsi, so have had a hard time rolling my Rs for the longest time.Graciasss!
Gracias hermano que dios te bendiga, yo puedo hablar espanol casi fluido(estoy escribiendo mal porque quiero escribir rápido) pero nunca podía hacer esto sonido y estaba hablando espanol por todo mi vida. Esto ayudó bastante muchisimas gracias.
This video was a lifesaver! I’ve been trying to learn how to trill for years but I never got it down until watching this video!! I literally learned it in 5 mins. I used your advice on the “ara” as well as separating the word like carro & looking in the mirror while doing it helped with tongue placement
You are a true rockstar, sir! My whole life I have never been able to roll my r's but I finally did it with your help! God bless you! You're a beautiful person - inside and out!!!
Thanks to you I know I'll be able to master rolling my 'r's and I'm so excited! The 'ara' trick is what the secret is. I have NEVER been able to figure this out, but now thanks to your excellent tutorial there's hope for this 62 year old Hispanic who's trying to learn Spanish!!!! Thanks so so much!
Here's a little ditty I was taught in Kindergarten in Cuba: "Erre" con "erre" cigarro, "erre" con "erre" barril. Rapido corren los carros, por las lineas del ferrocarril.
I have struggled with my r’s since childhood. My bf will tell me to say “roar ” just because it’s hard for me. But I did just follow your instruction for maybe 5min. I rolled my fudging r’s. Thank you Julio😂❤️ I love you
This is one of the most informative videos I've found, on explaining where the rolled r occurs and when to use it. I've just started learning Spanish and I surprised myself by managing to figure it out very quickly over a couple of days by doing a singer's trick which is to use the breath from the diaphragm. I really could not roll my Rs at all before this. The way I found was to put a hard *C* in front of a word like *rapido* to make *CRAPido* (ha ha) , send a blast of air from your diaphragm *NOT* your chest and then slowly try and cut away the *C* which acted like training wheels. By using the diaphragm you are removing tension from the mouth and tongue which might otherwise occur if you try and push air from your chest, because you will naturally default to trying to pushing with your throat. Words that start with *R* are easy (rojo, radio) but perro, sonreir are still tricky although you have confirmed that the best way to practice is to break up the word into chunks until you have the coordination down.
3/23/23 I used to be able to do this in my middle and high Spanish classes. Over the decades, I have lost the ability. Thanks for these tips. I’ve begun to study Spanish again. It was wanting to learn to dance Bachata - and the fabulous music and songs - that made me want to study. Like you, I have music on as often as possible. And I search the lyrics and hope it will all come together in my brain. My music of choice is Grupo Extra. My very fave bachata couple is La Alemana and Ataca. So beautiful and inspiring.
Muchas gracias por este video Connor! I didn’t know about the rule of the R after the consonants in a new syllable and so glad you shared all these rules with us. Alrededor is a tough one for me. Splitting the r like you explained in the video has been especially helpful for me and I practice with: El carro es caro. Earlier when I would pronounce the r’s it sounded exactly the same 😂. It helps me to listen to how you pronounce the words and then try to replicate. Awesome video! 🙏😃
I was getting so stressed not being able to do it and this video was such a calmer take to it. I love the fact that it emphasizes that it is something you have to practice and not something you can get right away.
As part of regaining neurological function, including a latent stammer I decided to learn languages the main being Spanish, French and Italian. The biggest drop was realising that the rrs in each one are made in different parts of the mouth. It requires exercising the tongue to tone it up, it is a muscle which needs to be strong, supple, and flexible. I find it is counterproductive to focus when having a chat, but that is when it started to come natural. Strange things we humans.
Thank you so much for this! I know quite a bit of Spanish, but I am struggling with rolling my rs correctly, so I'm not very comfortable holding a conversation. Will keep practicing! 🤗
Yep just looked at this video, slept on it & I can now trill a bit. Found it v difficult because it's difficult not to do the uvular trill but practicing using this advice definitely helped
Excellent instruction! After practice, I have the first two, but Al restaurante and alrededor is still a killer; I can do them slowly with a tiny pause in between, but trying to do it smoothly and naturally is still out of reach - guess I’ll just keep practicing! Thanks
This is the best video on this! It’s frustrating, because some times I’ll totally have it and be able to easily roll when I want, then one minute later, it’s like my tongue has totally forgotten how to do it! Tapping my tongue to the roof of my mouth on the consonants was key! Now I just need to keep my tongue relaxed.
I've tried for years to roll my r's. I did it for the first time while watching your video! What helped me most was explaining where my tongue position should be with the consonants before the rolled r.
thank you for addressing the positioning of your tongue when pronouncing consonants in English- that is 100% my problem and hardly anyone speaks to it!
WOW, I did it while watching your video. I've been trying for months! When you said change position. I was already lying in bed on my laptop. I just tilted my head back so my tongue would relax against the top of my mouth. It worked basically instantly.
You are wonderful as a pronunciation coach! The "ara" practice is invaluable! After living in Oaxaca for 10 years and having intermittent problems with rolling "r" sounds, the burst-of-air practice helped me identify the problem and correct it.
THIS is what I’ve been needing! Ahra was the start and everything else was just amazing!! Thank you for including the position of the tongue and air flow/breath too! Just everything in this video I needes
Holly cats! That did the trick! I'm not there yet, but like a few folks here I gave up on trying to roll my 'r's. But changing the way I pronounce t in 'tres' like you said, makes all the difference. Remarkable...thank you!
I've been speaking Italian my whole life with my family (I still don't know much but hey lol) and I'm learning Spanish right now and I can't roll an R to save my life! I swear something is wrong with my tongue! Hopefully this video can help! Thank u for making it!
this video is MIRACULOUS!!!!! I have tried to learn how to roll my r's so many times and I almost didn't believe it when you said that slowly the tongue would start to vibrate more, but it actually happened. It feels almost as though my tongue is learning its own though hundreds of repetitions. Thank you!!!!
as someone who’s been rolling my r’s since i was a baby (just. for funsies i guess??? just to make a silly noise?? i only started learning spanish in high school) this was a really interesting video!! i had absently wondered for a while why some people found it difficult when it came so naturally to me so hearing you explain it made it click in my brain, of. oh. i hadn’t even realized i was pronouncing multiple OTHERS letters differently when speaking spanish.
I have been trying to pronounce my husband's sir name, Gargallo, correctly for 12 years .🤣 Not for the lack of trying! I've made significant progress today after watching this video. Thank you!
Thank you. I had heard most of these things before, but I like the aspect of taking it as a process of practice rather than a trick. I feel like a fluent Spanish speaker, but not rolling my r's has been a bummer for the last few years. Things that helped me get some progress that I didn't get before: 1. The only 'breathing 'ara' activity repeatedly throughout the day 2. Honestly the idea of telling myself that this could be a process of three to six months. Made my brain more patient, and that made me more relaxed, and once I was relaxed I started making progress, also because I finally had the patience to practice every day instead of try and get it done in 30 minutes or never. 3. @gheard1000 's comment about saying 'pot of tea' several times really fast throughout the day. I did that a bit, and changed the 't' sounds with spanish 'd' or 't' sounds. After all that I took myself through reading a short story very slowly and focusing on every syllable of pronunciation, which I haven't done in a long time, and I said 'perro' and heard a little glimmer of 'rr' sound. It's very relieving to see progress after 4 years. Thank you!
Hey John, that's awesome, thank you for sharing. Glad to hear those exercises helped. One thing you said is key, I think - "I finally had the patience to practice every day instead of try and get it done in 30 minutes or never." I think relaxing and giving yourself time to practice over time, not all at once, is really what makes it happen. Happy to hear you felt some progress!
As a viejito English teacher, I really admire you for analyzing this seemingly hopeless sound and giving us a way to relearn "r" in a Spanish context. I have to use similar methods as I try to correct adult learners with engraved pronunciation errors. I totally believe you when you say it took 14 months to develop your teaching platform. Good job!
I have been speaking in Spanish for many years, but still cannot pronounce RR correctly. The tips like "Car+ro" and putting the tongue in the correct position are really helpful.
Hi there! Just found your video and it was a tremendous help, after an hour practicing I was finally able to produce the R sound. I can still only do it when I'm saying a word with the R, but nevertheless that is such a progress! The "ara" trick was really doing it for me, first I thought this would lead nowhere, but it actually worked. Once I got the right sound with "ara" I tried to practice the R with "aro" for example. The hardest part was rolling the R when at the beginning of a word e.g. in rojo. So I would say "aro-jo" and slowly dropped the "a". What helped was really doing a forceful, quick outburst of air from your lung, try to even synchronize that with a little down movement of your head towards the front. Thanks a lot!
Ok, this is the first video that’s broken it down in a way that makes sense. I’m also so happy you said that it might take three to six months because other videos I’ve watched are like “Roll your Rs with this one weird trick!!!!!” so now I feel really encouraged. Thank you!
Man, oh man. After years of speaking tourist Spanish with Turkish-sounding Rs, my 'but' and my 'dog' now sound Spanish!! Thank you so very much from a very appreciative Cornishman. Oll an gwella/All the best y muchas, muchas gracias❤
what a great video! i was skeptical at first bc i struggle with R's in all languages so i thought i was hopeless without visiting a speech therapist or smth. i loved the breakdown of the problem for english speakers although my accent is closer to BrE. but what made me hooked is the way you described that l/r difference. somehow just following your directions unlocked a new position for my tongue :D i don't know if it will actually stick with me but anyways it's a wonderfully informative video! p.s. what helped me more is smiling or grinning (tongue gets closer to the roof of the mouth) and, funnily enough, trying to make a kh sound (that i usually avoid bc that's how i think my R's sound naturally). that little bit of aspiration makes the trill!
Hola, thank you for sharing information. The idea of breaking up words between the rr is very helpful. I would also like to share an idea. Many years ago, my teacher had us practice rolling the rr by saying “pot of tea” really fast. It sounds crazy but it worked for me! I can’t explain the position of the tongue or the air flow from the mouth or lungs but my rr roll when I say the above phrase.
haha, that sounds like "para tí" : ) personally, for one reason or another, I've always been able to pronounce words like "cara" and "otra" just fine, but I still struggle with "perro". I'm practicing with "atriba" until I can move on to "arriba"
This is my first day so I don't know yet if it works for me, but I've watched lots of videos about it and the way you break it down makes it feel achievable and now I feel like I have some starting blocks! Thank you! I'll update after I put in the work!
As a 32 year old Mexikanisch-amerikanisch I am ashamed to say I wasn’t given points in this area of my Mexican Skill tree. Like luck, guess it was something I didn’t need 😐😐🤷🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️ Holy Chet!!! 🫨🫨🫨 I did it!!!! This guy is valid!!! I needed this for my German class lol but hey maybe I can take other Germanic languages and even romance languages later lol!!! Sub!!!!
Technique that I just found works for me for the single r’s .. push both back sides of your tongue up to your molars and do the r sound. Closest I’ve got to it.
It seems to me kind of similar to how I learned to snap my fingers or to hold chopsticks later in life. I didn't learn this as a kid and just learned some years ago. I'm now 40 years old and I'm just now learning this trick. It seems like if you do it a specific way it's much easier but you need to do it that way, the tip about keeping my tongue in a specific place behind my teeth and letting it bounce but not forcing it seemed to do the trick. I'm noticing a slight trill and the funny thing is it seems to happen naturally but the harder I try the worse I do which goes along with what was said about not forcing it. I guess it is a bit counterintuitive in that way so now that I've seen some progress I'll just have to keep practicing and I trust that hopefully I'll have it down in not much time. The fact that I even managed to do a slight trill within minutes has me feeling pretty good like I leveled up and feeling like maybe there's some hope for me getting this after all these years ❤😂
Coming back here having watched this a few weeks ago. I personally didn't find the ara trick that helpful, but I'm glad to see it working for so many people! What helped me actually was realizing (from this video) how to do the tr sound by pronouncing the t with my tongue near my teeth instead of in the back of my mouth. Thus, I suddenly understood how to say words like "tren", so I practiced saying words with a tr as that felt like a benchmark. Then yesterday, I said "tren" and noticed the r kind of sounded rolled. So I was trying other words and suddenly I was rolling my rs! I honestly wasn't even trying to roll my rs by doing the tr thing, but I'm glad it worked and I thought I'd share it here. Good luck to those who are learning.
@@BreakthroughSpanish Thanks, I figured as such, so I thought it would be helpful if there happens to be someone like me :) I think that what they have in common is that they both start with focusing on the tapped r and intuitively figuring out which tongue placement feels right, which requires a combination of practicing as well as listening to know what the right sound is. I also think that proper pronunciation of other Spanish vowels helped for me too. Even now, I still feel like I'm guessing when using words like "caro", but less so for words like "barato", so I imagine that it just depends on which sounds the learner latches onto early on. I am curious though if there tend to be trends on what sounds are considered "easier" although my searches online seem to show that it's all over the place with some people finding words that start with r to be easier while others are like me and found r after a consonant to be easier. Anyways, I'm obviously not a Spanish teacher and I only successfully rolled an r two days ago, but having been a teacher for a few years now in other subjects, I have experience with different students understanding a concept in their own way, before eventually understanding it more fully, so I'm curious if it's similar here too.
Thank you so much for this video. I've been unsuccessfully trying to roll the R's for so many year, but by the time I finished watching your video and practicing while I watch, I was able to roll the R's at the end of this video.
I've spent years trying and somehow the ara trick finally worked, took like 30 minutes and still plenty of room for improvement but I can finally do it
Thank you! This is actually the only video that helped me a lot in understanding what I'm doing wrong all this time and now, I could roll my r just need a lot more practice to do.
I DID IT THANKS TO YOU. Other videos put me on the right path, but your video gave me my first success. I wanted to learn how to properly say "silenzio Bruno" from the Disney movie, Luca. Perhaps that word was to difficult to start with. I now understand that vowel-consonant-vowel words work best for learning. I tried a few different words as you presented them, and got REALLY close with "carro". But then, I randomly tried "orro" and it came out PERFECTLY on the third try. Now I know where my tongue should sit, and what it feels like. All in all, it took me close to 4 hours. I'm already moving onto other words, and I'm having varying degrees of success with them. THANK YOU. New skill learned. 👍 6:23 was the most impactful advice for me. Instead of saying cara, say catta/cadda. That helped a lot.
I thought I needed surgery but after watching your video I live in hope! I'm 71 now so time is running out but I shall practice every day and.........I think it's working!!!!!!
I think this is the best video I have watched on how to roll your rs so far because, based on simple examples, I noticed a very tiny but big difference!
I had watched A LOT of videos about rolling RRs. I was pretty frustrated. This one, and one other, were the ones that finally did the trick. I still have work to do on words like "sonreir," but I'm basically there. Much thanks.
I'm not consistent with it at all, but I manage a continuous trill while still watching the video. I have been having horrible flashbacks to high school Spanish 😅 I cannot express enough how much the tip to just force air over your tongue helped.
Just discovered your videos. They’re great! My biggest problem rolling r’s is in words like “rural”. Once I trill that first “r” it’s so hard for me to not trill the next one.
![How to Roll Your R's, Step-by-Step [Spanish Pronunciation]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
