Pronunciation of the rolled 'r'
 

Hi everyone!
I'm a beginner of Latin. Since it got me in the pronunciation of all the "r"s like the one in "liber" and there's little sources I could find to help me pronounce Latin, I studied the basic pronunciation of Spanish first.

After 2 hours practice, for my knowledge in Spanish is so poor that I cannot even tell if I pronounced it rightly, I turn to here. I made a small video which included my pronunciation of 8 words. 4 are simple "r"s while 4 are hard "r"s(rr?).
<snip> Removed video link <snip>
I also uploaded the audio source in my attachment.

If I did it wrongly, could you please tell me in where I misdid and how to improve my pronunciation of hard r?
Thanks in advance!

P.S. This is my first post here and I do not know if I put it in the proper category. My sincere apologies if I don't.

Hi,

Learning to recognize the differences between the two 'r' sounds is a difficult task for those not accustomed to using them in their mother tongue. It's made a bit easier if you speak a language that has a close approximation. American English has a close approximation to the clipped, or single 'r' (what you called 'simple r'), but it has no equivalent for the double, or rolled 'r' (what you called the 'hard r').

Since your mother tongue is Chinese, you don't have any sound that approximates either letter, so you'll have twice the challenge.

Your pronunciation of the clipped 'r' sounds a lot like the letter 'l'. It is quite common for Chinese speakers to confuse the two sounds, so don't despair. From what I understand, a native Chinese speaker cannot differentiate between the 'l' and the 'r'.

Your pronunciation of the rolled 'r' is close. There are threads here in the forum that contain samples of the rolled 'r' (and the clipped 'r', for that matter). Here's one.

Hello ARouND. Welcome to the forums. Keep practicing at it and eventually you'll get it. I'm alwasy impressed when someone ventures out into a language that has no relation to their mother tongue. Like Rusty was saying. I'm very impressed with the audio clip. Very brave, I don't know if I would do that :confused:. Good luck and keep practicing.

Thanks for you all for your helpful replies and the best encouragements! I'll keep trying!