Spanish - Rolling your "R" - Help Needed!

Mage

I'll make you submit!
Hi,

I am finishing up on becoming fluent in French and I am now beginning Spanish, but in order to fulfil my best Spanish sounding accent I need to be able to do that dreaded and infamous rolled "Rrrrr" noise, which I can't seem to do no matter what I attempt to do. Are there any Spanish speakers (particularly English native speakers who have learnt Spanish) who can give me any tips or directions on doing so?

Yes, I have looked on Youtube and most of them just say "Hurr durr put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth and exhale and you're done huehuehue". This absolutely is not showing someone how to do it and it would be great if someone can give me pointers, since I know that there are a few Spanish players out there.

Portuguese and Italian speakers can also help since they have very similar sounding "R"'s as well.
 
Alright, well it's kind of hard to explain but I'll try.

Put the tip of your tongue towards the back of the roof of your mouth. Make sure that the tip of your tongue isn't bent. Then, exhale a little forcefully and you should get it. Make sure you're pushing your tongue up against the roof of your mouth. It might hurt a little, but that's because that's not how you should naturally do it. After you get used to that and get the sound out, try moving the tip of your tongue towards the middle of the roof of your mouth. That's where I normally have my tongue when I roll my R's. Hope this helps. If not, let me know and I'll think of different ways to teach you.

Source: I'm Dominican and fluent in Spanish.
 
Just practice like crazy. I remember taking Spanish back in high school and it took me nearly a month to be able to do that tongue roll.
 
I can't tell you how to do it unless you're right in front of me... why not go into the local barrio and ask a nice looking mexican to help you?
 
I can't tell you how to do it unless you're right in front of me... why not go into the local barrio and ask a nice looking mexican to help you?
Unfortunately we don't have many or any mexicans in the UK, but thanks for your very useful post.
 
Hope this helps, the singer of Rammstein seems to roll every letter in the alphabet lol.

Edit: Also when i roll my R the tip of my tongue is nowhere near the roof of my mouth.
I just lift the back of my tongue, the tip touches my front teeth.
Can you do the hissing x sound like in spanish pronounciation of Mexico? (CH in german)
The point you're looking for is between that and Arabian broad CH sound
(a persian joke says to learn arabian you have to put a raisin down your throat as far as possible and cough it up again, see Achmed the dead terrorist)
Somewhere between Mexico and Achmed something in your throat starts to vibrate.
That should be a RRRolling R.

Edit2: You also have to experiment with the volume of exhalation.
 
Last edited:
Back