Sounds · R and L

R is never rolled

If your tongue tip touches, even once, hiring sounds like hiding.

Hear it in pairs

Keep your tongue off the roof of your mouth. If it touches, you say the small word.

• hiring, not hiding
• firing, not fighting
• viral, not vital
• generic, not genetic
• hearing, not heating
• staring, not stating
• sharing, not shading
• daring, not dating
• exploring, not exploding
• swearing, not sweating
• hear it, not heat it

In a sentence

• Sorry, I'm running late. Sorry, I'm running late.
• Can I try it on? Can I try it on?
• Really? That's great! Really? That's great!

Careful with these

• T and D between vowels touch once, as a quick D: water, city, ready, body

How to say it

• Pull the tip of your tongue back, so it touches nothing.
• Round your lips a little: red, right, really.
• Start from the “er” in work, then open into red.
• After a consonant, the tip still touches nothing: try, from, three.

Listen for: An R with no touch at all: hiring, not hiding.

Where to look for it

Any R before a vowel: at the start (red), between vowels (very, sorry) and after a consonant (try, from). A double RR is not longer or rolled: sorry has one R.

More about it

A double RR is one R: sorry, carry. One touch makes very sound like “veddy”. A rolled R is a fine sound in many languages; American English does not use it.

Teachers call this: The American R is an approximant (bunched or retroflex), not a tap or a trill.

Listen for it today. When someone bumps into you and says “Sorry!”, listen: the R touches nothing.