Coffee Break Spanish - How to pronounce the ‘r’ in Spanish | The Coffee Break Spanish Show 1.01

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Welcome to the very first episode of the Coffee Break Spanish Show! We start the season off by learning how to pronounce the letter R when speaking Spanish - and how and when to use it.➡️ Click here to access the blog article and worksheet which accompany this episode ⬅️ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish Welcome to the Coffee Break Spanish show I'm Mark And I'm this brand new series from Coffee Break Spanish We are going to be helping you take your Spanish to the next level with our weekly episodes

Wow, sounds great, no? What's how do you? I'm very excited I'm with much more excited I'm with much more than to start this new project Well, well, the good thing is that maybe you are like listening to the podcast

In that case, remember to subscribe to our podcast in wherever you listen to it or maybe it's the video in that case also remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Absolutely, so we've got a video version of this podcast and an audio version

so that you can learn wherever and whenever the notion takes you. Anabel, what we're going to do learn or to practice how to pronounce something that might be challenging in Spanish. This is probably one of the biggest questions and the most common questions that we get here

at Coffee Break Spanish. How do you pronounce the letter R, whether it's a single R or a double R? Well, that's what we are going like to find out in this episode. You're lit? I see, you. Listissimo. Let's start. So Annabel, tell us, first of all, about the single R. Okay, so let's learn how to pronounce that single R.

And for that, I think that you can help because I remember how you taught it, like, for the first time. like when I hear it and I loved it and it's about accents. Yes, so this is where I get a little embarrassed because I am going to have to put on a sort of bad American accent here to explain how you pronounce a single R in Spanish. And if you think of the word bottle,

but think of how that would be said in New York. And again, apologies. This is not to embarrass anyone, just me. I just want me that's going to get embarrassed here. But if you say battle, that two sound in there that you're seeing bottle is kind of like a flick with your tongue. That's a Spanish R.

Yes, that is, yeah. But in case you are not good with accents like me, don't worry because we are also going to like to tell you where like to put that tongue. We need like to take the tip of the tongue and just like run it like up the teeth. And with the D or T, what we do is just like kind of like touch it and that's it. But with the R we are going like to caress it gently.

So it's going to be like, I kind of flick. Yeah, that's it. Okay. So I think what we should do, what would be helpful here is if we put that sound into some other sounds so that we can hear what happens when it's in between two vowels, for example. Yeah. So just like to practice some drills, you and also like the listener can be practice. So the first one and the easiest one will be Ara.

Ara. Aare. Ari. Ari. Aro. Aru. Aru. And then we can change the vowels.

Yeah. So it will be like, Eira. Ere. Eri. Eri. Ero. Ero. Ero. Ero. And so on.

So each time we're hearing that very soft. And if you again think back to barrel, it's that same sound that we use there. Not a bottle that we would say bottle in my Scottish English, but barrel in a kind of American accent. again, not wanting to offend in any way. Okay, that's the sound, but we hear this sound in many words. Let's look at some Spanish words that have this single R sound in it. Okay, so for example, one that is very useful is caro. So caro means dear or expensive.

Caro. Ere. So that's from the verb ser. It was. Yes, so as. Hiro. Hiro. That's like a turn.

Yeah, I turn from the word. Girada? Yeah. And Werto. Werto. So Werto, now that's not between two vowels. It leads into a tea there. So Werto is the same sound, but Werto is a garden.

Yes, yes. And when we have a single R, just before a consonant, then we are going to have that simple R, as you mentioned, because we have to be careful if it goes after that consonant, then we have a different sound. Different. We'll get there. We'll get there. So that so far is.

is the single R in Spanish. Really straightforward. Just think of bottle, as I said. Caro, era, giro, uerto. Yeah. Perfect. What about the double R?

Okay. So for that one, the first thing that we need to know is where to put the tongue. And we know. So we are going to like to keep it there. Okay, just like in the upper part of your teeth, like a little bit above.

And then just like keep it there and excel air. Yeah. And with time, with practice, if it helps you try to say like PR, like brr, or brr, that might help you to pronounce like that double R. Okay, now I know that as a Scott, I probably have an advantage here because we use a RR sound all the time. The red ragged rocks and all that kind of thing. But it's definitely a little trickier, perhaps, if you're not from an area where that sound is used regularly.

as Annabel said, if we put our tongues just above the back of your teeth and then blow down, almost blow down either side, and then let your tongue start to wiggle and you can also combine it with another consonant like

brh, brh and so on. Yeah, excellent. Yeah. And once that we got like that sound, then we can start combining it with some vowels. So for example, we can say ra. Rha.

R. Rre. Ri. Rro. Rue. And this is kind of like easier. I don't want to say, but it's easier because we start with that r-r sound. Once that we master that, then we have a r.

Arra. Er. Oh, that wasn't a very good one. Er. Excellent. Iri. Yerri. Orro.

Urru. Urru. So you can hear the double R in there. It's very clear. And what I think we then need to see is how that would then sound in some words. So for that, I just chose like a one like it was a little bit tricky. That is carretera. Right.

So the reason this is tricky is because it's got both R's in it. Yes. So we've got the double R. Carré and then a singular terra. Yes. Carre terra. Uh-huh. Perfect.

So if you struggle with that one, just as you have done, start with carre, carre, carre, carre, and then terra, terra, terra, terra, and then terra, terra, and shi. you come together. Carre, carre, carre, terra, terra, terra. Perfect. Okay. Now, when it comes to pronunciation, there's one thing that I always love doing, and that is a little bit of a tongue twister. And I think you've prepared some tongue twisters for us today. Of course, of course, some travalinguas. Travalinguas, so travalinguas. Now, that's T R, and the R comes after the T. So in that situation, we have the double R same, don't we? Uh-huh. It's a strong art. So travalinguas. Okay. Let's hear your first travalinguas. So it is

three Tris Trigres dragan trigo in a trigal. Madre me. So there we've got three Tristes Tigres dragan trigo in a trigal. Wow. Every one of those hours is that strong the same R sound that we hear with a double R like carro. Now as with the English tongue twisters very often they don't really make a lot. of sense. And this one is no different. So three sad tigers devour wheat in a wheat field. Let's give our listeners and viewers a chance to repeat this particular tongue twister. Go for it. Okay. So three Tristes Tigres tragan trigo in a trigal. Three Trisestes Tigres dragan trigo in a trigal.

That's perfect. Okay. Let's do another one. Okay. This one is. The carrill del train is rapid, caro, and raro. Now, that's a mixture of R sounds in there. We've got some double R sounds and single R sounds, strong and weak hours. So El Carril is the rail del train of the train, the railway line, I guess. It's rapido. So a strong Rar there, rapido.

It's fast, caro, expensive, and rarro. Yeah, that's the tricky one. So rare. Raro. The first Rar, it's a strong Rar because it starts the word. And then the second hour is a soft hour because it's in the middle. It's an intervocalic Rarro. In between two vowels.

Raro. Very well. Let's hear the same sentence again, but we'll leave time for our listeners to repeat. The Carrile of the train is rapid, caro, and rarro. The carrile of the train is rapid, caro, and rarro. Perfect. Let's do one more. Okay.

So it's El Perro De Pedro Raska a ratta. Okay, so we've got El Perro dog, the dog with a double R El Perro de Pedro

of Pedro Raska a rat so he scratches the rat. It's not very pleasant this one. But we've got mostly,

in fact, we've got all double R sounds like strong R sounds in there even though some are just single R's

in terms of the spelling. El Perro de Pedro raska a ratta. See, I did something there with that last R.

And I don't think I did it correctly. Because I'm thinking it's La Rata, it becomes

almost intervcalic but because we've got La Rata, do we still make it a strong Rarta? Yes, he's

La Rata. Very perfect. Is that, would you want to do that one more time for our listeners?

Yeah. The Perro de Pedro raska a Rata. El Perro de Pedro Raska

a ratta. Perfect. We hope that you have enjoyed this lesson of Coffee Break Spanish.

If you'd like to see a written version of all of the content of this lesson, then you

can check out our blog article. We've put together a blog article explaining how to

pronounce single R's and double hours and also how they work in different situations at

the beginning of words and so on. And you can find that article at the link in

the description of this podcast episode. And if you will like more help with your Spanish like getting regular free emails, lessons, then visit coffeebreaklanguages.com slash Spanish. And you can look out for the next mini lesson in your inbox very soon if you subscribe to that option.

All right. Much thanks, Anavee. Thanks to you and us others. And we're back very soon with another episode of Coffee Break Spanish. But for now, Happy Coffee Breaking. Adios.

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