Spanish Language Tip: The Rolling ‘R’
Spanish is such a fun language to speak. We’re always doing our best to imitate the accent, adding some flare in our body language, puffing out the lips a little to get the vowels just right, and of course, working our tongue to get out some good ‘r’ rolling.
Before I learned Spanish I thought that all Spanish ‘r’s rolled. Then as I started learning the language, I thought only the double ‘rr’ rolled. And after that, I noticed some very dramatic Mexican telenovela, soap opera, actors were getting out big ‘r’ rolling for words starting with the letter ‘r’. Now, this absolutely threw me. I thought they were simply being dramatic. When I expressed my amusement at the seconds-long ‘r’s at the start of words, I was quickly corrected that YES, single ‘r’s at the beginning of words in Spanish are rolled!
Knowing the rules is one thing, but getting that ‘r’ to actually roll is another feat in itself. Some teachers have students stick a pen or pencil under their tongue and then as the tongue is relaxed, blow air strongly out of the mouth. The tongue needs to bounce off the roof of the mouth just a tiny bit behind the teeth. If you use your voice, the sound comes out perfectly! This sound doesn’t exist in the English language so if it’s something you feel like you can’t get, don’t distress. Like most language learning, it takes patience, practice and leaving your self-conscious self out of it. Time and again, we see that practice pays off - it’s something you can do while you’re typing at the computer, driving your car, reading … Before you know it, you’ll be an ‘r’-rolling master.
The ‘r’ rolling rules
I wish I’d been taught these very simple rules for when to roll the ‘r’ in Spanish at the beginning of my Spanish language learning journey. In my opinion, the ‘r’ and ‘rr’ pronunciation should be included when we learn how to pronounce the letters of the Spanish alphabet especially because of the Spanish language’s phonetic rigidity. The phonetics of Spanish are ‘you pronounce what you see’ and this is quite the opposite of the English language.
The two times in Spanish we roll the ‘r’
When two ‘rr’s are together.
Ferrocarril (railway)
Carro (car)
Jarra (pitcher)
When a word begins with ‘r’:
Rojo (red)
Risa (laughter)
Ruedo (wheel)
FUN FACT: Why don’t the rolling ‘r’s sound the same in the Yucatán Peninsula?
The Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico which includes the states of Quintana Roo, Yucatán and Campeche is the land of Yucatec Maya. Currently, about 700,000 people in the Yucatan Peninsula still speak Maya. Even if the younger generations don’t speak Maya, their grandparents and parents most likely do speak or understand it. As many grandparents learned Spanish when they began school, their Maya pronunciation and intonation directly influences their Spanish pronunciation. In Maya, there is no rolling ‘r’. Because of this, it’s rare to hear the same strong ‘r’ rolling as is heard in other parts of Mexico and some Maya speakers have difficulty rolling their ‘r’s too!
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