Spoken French - How to pronounce the French R 

Wish me luck. Imma trying for two days

lovely tip, Kay!

@@Commeunefrancaise Merci, Géraldine!

Merci we will try out best

It's the same for me. I really don't understand why i struggle with the verb 'parler'. I've been practicing this verb for months and I still feel like I can't pronounce it properly.

@@bisforbegum There's some irony in the word meaning "to talk" being difficult to say!

This video helped me immensely with being able to pronounce those types of words: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NrWnhwj0UT4.html

Try moving the rolled-r forward in your mouth closer to the point where the soft palate meets the hard palate. You may have already noticed that the sensation of the rolled-r naturally moves forwards and backwards across the soft palate when it occurs at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, or if it occurs more than once in the same word. What always works best for me is to pay very close attention to the sensation in the mouth and then you can learn to move it around more or less at will. You can actually feel it when you are getting it right, the rolled-r seems to be about selectively relaxing the soft palate more than anything else. I'm not a linguist, but I believe that technically this would be pronouncing the rolled-r as almost a velar rather than uvular fricative. What trips me up now is that I sometimes accidentally put the velar fricative in some words like, 'voyager' where it does not belong.

Same! No matter how much my pronunciation improves, I still seem to struggle with that one word lol

If you want a tip, the tongue curls up when you pronounce the English r. With the french r, the lips and the tongue do not move AT ALL. The tongue sits in its resting place. Now say the word air with the English r. The tongue curls upward, right? Now say the word air again, but this time when you say the 'r' sound, keep the tongue in its resting place, and don't move the lips.

@@emmanuelteshome2469 Oh my goodness ! You're right ! No one has ever explained it to me like that before. I just tried your tip and it has *definitely* improved my "r" . Mind blown. Wow, thanks so much !!

@@christopherdieudonne Anytime!

@@christopherdieudonne I'm not learning french by the way 😂

@@emmanuelteshome2469 if you're not learning French, then how did you know that tip ? It's great ! I've heard so many tips about the French "r" but yours is the best I've ever heard. Perhaps you are a French speaker, native tongue, who knows how to teach your language ?

great tips, John!

@@Commeunefrancaise :) Danke. I mean, merci.

Exactement ! je peux pas dire "rire"

@@juliaz3072 Type 'How to pronounce rire in french' into youtube. There are a number of videos. It's just practice. It is exactly like 'dire' but substitute the 'd' for 'r'. You will succeed. Just listen and repeat again and again. Good luck and happy hew year.

@@gyp3xp48 thanks, I'll give it a try!! Happy new year ☺️

Thanks , imma try this out

I wonder if that's acceptable for spoken French. I know some French singers roll their Rs, but do people do that while speaking? Je ne sais pas.

@@portapotty69 I don’t know, but I suspect it’s not done. However, even if it’s exaggerated, it’s good practice. All you have to do is just scale it back. 😉

For a few weeks of learning French this is very impressive

don't worry too much though, even if you pronounce it the English way, people will understand what you say

I've noticed that quite a few French people tend to roll or tap their 'r' when singing.

For a more exaggerated movement, try swallowing slightly while you do it. Then you can separate those hard consonants towards the front of your mouth, and send the Rs back into your throat. It takes a while to build the muscle memory, but stick with it and you'll be able to do it without thinking.

@@talideon It's a more regional sort of thing.

Yeah. I find it odd when people talk about "French R". There's more than one!

C'est super dur !

or chirurgirie!

Quand il y a deux "r" dans un mot, j'ai déjà remarqué que c'est plus compliqué pour les anglophones. Par exemple : "le trafic est perturbé" (qu'on entend souvent dans les gares !). Le mot perturbé peut être prononcé avec les 2 "r" si on se concentre en le prononçant lentement. Cependant, en prononçant la phrase à vitesse normale, j'ai déjà remarqué que les anglophones n'arrivent à prononcer qu'un seul des deux "r". Ca donne "pertu'bé" ou "pe'turbé", je trouve ça assez fascinant :) Si quelqu'un a une explication sur le mécanisme mis en oeuvre ici et qui semble empêcher la répétition rapprochée du son "r", je suis intéressé :)

Indeed some learners pronounce it a too hard (and somehow sounds Russian by doing this ^^) but I think it's very difficult for foreigners who literally never pronounced this sound to find the right balance between "too much" and "not enough"... Be nice to them, the French "R" is really THAT difficult...!

The same reason most people who are learning English absolutely butcher our "R" lol

eh non...

🤣