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How to roll your Rs: The definitive guide

The complete lesson series


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Learning to roll your Rs is an essential part of speaking comprehensible Spanish.


Many people think they cant do itor at best, it will take years to learn.
Its actually pretty easy.
In these four lessons, we give you a simple, step-by-step guide thats been proven to work.

OVERVIEW

LESSON LESSON LESSON LESSON


1 2 3 4
Become aware Learn how to Incorporate the Master the trill
of your tongue vibrate your trill into words
position tongue and
mouth

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
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LESSON
1 Become aware of your tongue
position

Want to master the apico-alveolar trill?

Get to know your tongue. Tonguemeet you; youtongue.

You may be tempted to skip these first exercisesbut dont. All the
difficulty of learning to trill comes down to not having the awareness of
whats going on inside your mouth.

The
EXERCISE EXERCISE The
ut-butt er
p e an
1 scrape 2 alphabet

Imagine you have a spoonful of peanut butter stuck Go through the alphabet slowly, saying each letter
to the roof of your mouth. out loud. For each letter, see if you can feel where
your tongue is positioned or what its path of
With the tip of your tongue, reach far back into motion is. If it touches another part of your mouth,
your mouth and scrape forward as if trying to where does it touch?
remove the peanut butter.
If youre not sure, investigate by using a mirror (and
Move slowly and pay attention. Feel how your possibly your fingers).
palate changes from soft (in back) to hard (in front).
Feel your tongue pass over the ridge behind your Extra credit: Identify the six sounds in English
teeth (thats your alveolar ridge!) and then onto the where the tongue closely approaches the alveolar
back of your upper teeth. ridge. Answers are at the bottom of the page.

Continue down the back of your bottom teeth But the p oint is not about the answers, the point is
and onto the floor of your mouth. Then reverse to develop your awareness.
directions, letting the tip of your tongue inscribe a
U-shape in your mouth.

Do the same thing from side-to-side, with your


tongue tip stroking the inside of your cheeks and
lips.

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
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LESSON
2 Learn how to vibrate your
tongue and mouth

In the rolled R, the tip of your tongue vibrates against the alveolar ridge.

But I recommend you start with an easier vibrationjust to get used to


how trills work.

EXERCISE The

3 lip trill

This first vibration doesnt involve the tongue at all. Its a lip vibration.

This is the sound we use to express Brrrits cold! or that kids use when they want to make the sound of an
engine. I like to start here because everythings visiblenot hidden inside the mouth. But the mechanism is just
the same.

Do this exercise even if you can already make this sound, so that you understand the mechanism.

For this trill, your lips are almost completely touching and you direct the air stream right between them. Your
tongue is relaxed.

Notice how, if you relax your lips completely, the air just flows out with a whooshing sound.

Now, while breathing (and whooshing), gently activate your lips so that they come together, closing the small
gap.

If you close them hard and fast, youll simply stop the air flow. But if you close them slowly and gently, in a
relaxed manner, they will begin to vibrate!

Here are two experiments to try:

1. Relax your lips completely and forcefully blow as much air as you can. You will find it impossible for your
lips NOT to vibrate. (If they dont, its because they are not relaxed.)

2. Keep your lips tense and gradually make the gap smaller and smaller without completely stopping the air.
What happens?

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
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EXERCISE Closed

4 tril
tongue l

I believe the closed tongue trill is the simplest, easiest tongue trill to learn.

Get the hang of this trill, and the rolled R is just a small step away.

4.1 Start by saying Shhhhhhhhh. Give a really good shush to that person in the library talking on their cell
phone.

4.2 Now say it again, but this time cut the sound off in mid-stream just by using your tongue.

Can you feel where your tongue is? (If not, you may want to revisit exercises 1 & 2.)

Take a moment to find it for yourself.

You cut off the air flow by pressing your tongue flat up against the roof of your mouth.

4.3 Experiment with using just your tongue to repeatedly open and close an air gap with the roof of your
mouth. Try both shhh and chhh sounds, one may be easier for you.

Get used to moving your tongue consciously towards and away from your palate.

Its important that you dont move your jaw or lips when doing this exercise. Use only your tongue so that you
develop conscious control. Thats the key.

4.4 Now, say shhh using plenty of air, only this time start to close the gap but dont quite go all the way. Just
as with the lip trill, you will find that at a certain point vibration begins. A relaxed tongue will vibrate sooner
and with less effort than a tense tongue.

If it doesnt vibrate, try imagining you are creating an opening the thickness of a piece of paper. Now give a
big burst of air, visualize that sliver of openingand relax your tongue while holding it in place. It will vibrate
thats physics. Remember, the three variables to explore are:

1. The amount of air flow;

2. The air gap;

3. How relaxed your tongue is.

Bravo! Your tongue is vibrating! Although this sounds more like a muffled jackhammer than like speech, believe
it or not, youre very close now to having a usable alveolar trill.

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
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EXERCISE The

5 alveol
ar trill

We are finally ready to tackle the trill that makes the rolled R!

It is produced exactly the same way as the closed trill, except your mouth will be more open and only the tip of
your tongue will approach the roof of your mouth.

Its a bit more challenging because in this position, the air stream must be more precisely focused. Heres how
to find it:

5.1 Start with the closed trill and let your mouth openbut dont let the front of your tongue release from its
position. Keep the trill going! The back of the tongue will naturally come down with your jaw, but the front
should stay up.

You are almost there! This is an open mouth trill, using the blade of your tongue.

5.2 With your mouth wide open, position your tongue as if youre about to say tee. You should feel the tip of
your tongue pressed against your alveolar ridge.4

It should be just a small positional adjustment from the end of 5.1.

Now activate the vibration as in 5.1. Now you are trilling with the tip of your tongue. If you cant find this
trill, go back to 5.1, to remind yourself. Alternate between 5.1 and 5.2 until you can readily start from either
position.

5.3 Experiment with the key ingredients: amount of air, width of gap, degree of relaxationto develop your
control over the trill.

5.4 Bonus exercise: experiment with moving the point of contact to different places (behind the teeth, further
back in the mouth, etc.).

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
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LESSON
3 Incorporate the trill into words

You are over the hard part!

Even though your pure trill sounds more like kids playing cops and
robbers, one more small step will bring your trill into the realm of
language.

Vowel Conson
ant
EXERCISE + EXERCISE +
V wel
o
6 Trill 7 +
Trill

Start with an open ah sound: Relax your mouth and When you are comfortable with Exercise 6, its an
throat and give a good long Ahhhhhhh. easy step to your first real words. Try saying the
following words, rolling the final R:
Now try alternating Ahhh with the trill. Dont worry
about connecting them yet, just say Ahhh, make a mar (sea)
trill, say Ahhh, etc.
dar (to give)
Get used to snapping into the trill position (from
bar (bar)
Exercise 5) from your open vowel. If its hard, you
probably need to spend more time on Exercise 5, por (for)
mastering the pure trill.
color (color)
Now try eliminating the pause between Ahhh and
pintor (painter)
the trill:

Without stopping the vowel sound, simply close


your mouth slightly and move your tongue into For a challenge, try these:
position. Use the air flow from the vowel to start the
ver (to see)
trill: Ahhhhrrrrr. You may actually find this easier
than pausing in-between, since the vowel gets your ser (to be)
air stream started for you.
decir (to say)
For practice: Experiment using all five Spanish
sur (south)
vowels: /a/ + trill, /e/ + trill, /i/ + trill, /o/ + trill, /u/
+ trill.

Youll find that some are quite a bit harder! Thats Congratulations! You can roll your Rs!!!
normal and makes for great practice.

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
Copyright 2017 Larkwire, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 6
ant
Conson Trill
EXERCISE + EXERCISE
Trill +
8 + 9 Vowel
Vowel

Now that youve started trilling in real words, lets The R at the beginning of a word is always trilled.
continue to expand the contexts where youre able Its a bit different because theres no vowel stream
to trill. Practice the trill when surrounded on both helping you get the R started. If it seems hard, try
sides by a vowel: ghosting a very soft, quick vowel in front (eg., rata =>
(a)rata).
arra

erre
Practice these five words to cover all the vowels:
irri
rata (rat)
orro
reto (challenge)
urru
rico (rich)
Here are real words that use these contexts:
ropa (clothing)
parra (vine)
ruta (route)
cierre (zipper)

irritar (to irritate)

gorro (cap)

churruscar (to char)

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
Copyright 2017 Larkwire, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 7
LESSON
4 Master the trill

By now you have a solid, usable trill. Felicidades!

Your trill probably still feels a bit awkwardand to a native speaker, may sound a bit
foreign. Thats totally normal.

In this lesson, well cover three exercises to help your trill feel effortless and sound
just like a natives.

Long
EXERCISE and
10 short trills

One of the most common giveaways to a non-native trill is that it lasts too long.

Theres a simple reason for this: in the beginning, you think the trill takes a lot of energy to get going. And then
once its started, you cant really control how long it lasts.

In this exercise youll master the length of your trill.

10.1 Take a deep breath. Start a simple alveolar trill and maintain it as long as you can. Work up to trilling non-
stop for 5-10 seconds or longer.

While youre trilling, be aware of your breath, mouth and throat and consciously relax everything thats not
needed to keep your tongue in the trill.

10.2 Just like 10.1, except increase and decrease the intensity to form a roller coaster sound that goes up and
down.

10.3 Do a series of trills, keeping each trill as short as possible. As you develop control, youll be able to count the
trill pulses. A typical native trill has only 2-3 pulses, unless its being emphasized.

10.4 While giving a long trill, move the tip of your tongue forward or back and explore how the trill changes
as its location changes. You can trill right down to the point where your tongue is peeking out from under your
front teeth and as far back as your tongue can curl

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
Copyright 2017 Larkwire, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 8
EXERCISE Soft and EXERCISE f i c u lt
Dif
11 loud trills
12 contexts

Have you ever seen a weightlifter with his face all Its a physiological fact that certain contexts are
scrunched up? Does his face actually help lift the more difficult for rolling the R. These contexts
weight? benefit from focused practice.

Of course it doesnt. But theres a natural tendency Now that you understand the mechanics of the trill,
to engage extra parts of our body when learning you can break a difficult context into its components
a new motor skill. A large part of skill refinement is and put the pieces together.
getting rid of these unnecessary movements. For the
For example, el ratn: where is your tongue for the
rolled R, they can add not only strain but unwanted
l? What motion does it have to make to move from
sounds.
the l to the trill? Can you find a way to make that
A great way to clean up your trill and remove any smooth and effortless?
extraneous sounds is to find the smallest effort
Here are some of the most common ones. You may
possible to create the trill.
come across othersapply the same approach.
11.1 Experiment with making your trill as soft as
/l/ + trill, for example, el ratn (the mouse);
possible. You may be surprised to discover that you
can trill with almost no effort at alljust a small /s/ + trill, for example, las ranas (the frogs);
amount of breath. This comes with awareness of the
/ir/ + lo, for example, decirlo (to say it);
three key ingredients: breath, gap, and relaxation.
/er/ + lo, for example, verlo (to see it);
Try trilling in a whisper: rata, reto, rico, ropa, ruta.

11.2 Experiment with making your trill as loud as


possible.

This is a contrast exercise to 11.1. Youll find that by


alternating loud and soft, it becomes easier to notice
places where theres tension.

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
Copyright 2017 Larkwire, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 9
The road to mastery
If youre learning and speaking Spanish (or Italian, or Russian, or ...), youll be using your trilled R constantly. But it
wont automatically improve just through use.

By spending a few minutes here and there to consciously practice and improve, youll make rapid progress towards
a beautiful rolled R.

...Realmente!

Answers to Exercise 6 challenge

Here are the six English sounds where the tongue closely approaches the alveolar ridge:

/t/: the tip of the tongue touches the ridge, briefly blocks air and then releases;

/d/: same as /t/, but a voiced sound;

/s/: the tip and/or blade of the tongue closely approaches the alveolar ridge, restricting air flow

/z/: same as /s/, but a voiced sound;

/n/: the tip of the tongue presses against the alveolar ridge, obstructing air flow

/l/: the tip or blade of the presses against the alveolar ridge (Note: some English speakers may feel this further back
in the mouth)

How to roll your Rs:


The definitive guide
Copyright 2017 Larkwire, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 10

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