In British English /r/ is not always pronounced:
In three vowels /ɑː/ as “car” and /ɜː/ as in “Sir”, /ɔː/ as in “fork”.
In the three diphthongs /eə/ as in “pair”, /ɪə/ as in “ear”, and /ʊə/ as in “sure”
In place of schwa: doctor, teacher, sponsor
N.B: Unless it is a linking /r/ as in “car accident, under arrest” where the first word ends with /r/ and the next word starts with the vowel sound.
In American English /r/ is always pronounced, and they have two schwas:
1. Coloured schwa where /r/ is pronounced in words such as “sponsor, doctor, teacher”
2. Schwa in words such as “away, agree, the”
The /r/ sound should be pronounced between two vowel sounds in words such as “cherry, carriage, marriage”.
The /r/ is difficult to pronounce because of a particular tongue position.
Speech organs position for the English /r/ sound:
The tip of the tongue curls back slightly in the roof of the mouth, just behind the alveolar ridge, and the breath squeezes past whilst the tongue is still and not vibrating.
Some people with lazy tongues substitute /r/ with /w/ sound, Johnanat Ross does that, instead of “red roses he says “wed woses”. Some people do not pronounce /r/ at all. Japanese and Chinese often pronounce it as /l/ sound and they say “lead” instead of “read”.
You can master all sounds of English including the /r/ sound with the apps based RP:
Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, and Fluent English Speech (British English) or American Accent App and Fluent American Speech (American English), and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.
There are also two accompanying video courses: Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.
The same apps are also available on Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model (actors with perfect pronunciation were used to create soundtracks for these apps). The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you make the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.
When starting your practice with these apps, go to “How to use this app” and click on: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.
The apps contain:
Spelling variations for all sounds
Fluency and difficult speech patterns exercises
Intonation and sentence stress exercises
Pronunciation and articulation exercises
Tongue twisters
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