Order, order! More on pronouncing the letter 'r' in English

Welcome to season 5 of English Sound Building! Today, we’re continuing from last week’s look at the /r/ sound, thinking about places where we see the letter ‘r’ in writing, but do not pronounce it in a standard RP accent.

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Transcript

So, today we’re carrying on from last week’s look at the letter ‘r’, this time thinking about words where the letter ‘r’ comes after a vowel sound, either in word-final position or before a consonant sound. Here, we enter another fascinating area of pronunciation: the distinction between rhoticity and non-rhoticity. In my English-from-England, I do not pronounce the letter ‘r’ in this position, so for me it’s car, after, airport and so on.  This is called a non-rhotic ‘r’, and we tend to think of this as typical of English-from-England, and it is typical of many English-from-England accents, but is also found in many global Englishes such as many Australian, New Zealand and South African English accents, as well as a few regional accents in the States. Other varieties of English have a rhotic ‘r’, where you will hear that ‘r’ sound in the pronunciation. This in itself is fascinating: there are several different places this ‘r’ could be produced both within the UK and worldwide. To give you just a couple of examples, you might hear it in the postalveolar space (usually with the tongue curling back somewhere in the space below the hard palate), ‘r’, or as a tap ‘r’ or even trill ‘r’ in some places. So, if we take the word “centre”, as an example, you might hear the non-rhotic “centre”, or “centre” in the postalveolar space, or “centre” with a tap.

Now, in today’s podcast I’ll obviously be reading the words in my non-rhotic way. You have two choices: firstly, as you repeat, simply notice whether you produce a rhotic ‘r’ in English – and if you do, where it is produced. Secondly, if a modern RP accent is something you enjoy playing with, you could choose to try to drop those ‘r’ sounds. Either way, paying a bit of attention to whether the pronunciation of the ‘r’ matches the ‘r’ in writing will be helpful ahead of next week! 

Let’s start with some words with ‘r’ at the end. Firstly, words where the final vowel + r (or r + vowel) combination makes schwa. As we’ve mentioned in previous episodes, there are so many of these! 

1. another
2. centre
3. dinner
4. doctor
5. later
6. metre
7. neighbour
8. never
9. number
10. September
11. sister
12. sugar
13. teacher
14. winter

The next few involve a schwa diphthong: 

1. air
2. beer
3. compare
4. here/ hear
5. there
6. wear
7. year

And finally some words where the vowel + r makes a long vowel. My learners often particularly struggle with these, instead rhotacizing the ‘r’ and producing a short vowel, so ‘car’ becomes ‘car’, ‘her’ ‘her’ and so on.

1. before
2. car
3. door
4. far
5. four
6. her
7. star
8. your

Great stuff. Let’s practise some sentences with some of those words.

• My neighbour bought me dinner.
• I later met another doctor by the medical centre.
• We’ll compare the beer here this year.
• Close her car door before yours!

Now let’s move on to some words with ‘r’ after a vowel in towards the middle of the word. 

Firstly, a few where the ‘r’ and the vowel before it make a schwa.

1. exercise
2. forget
3. internet
4. interview
5. Saturday
6. understand

Let’s try one sentence with these words:

• Don’t forget to do the internet exercises before Saturday’s interview.

The majority here, though, involve long vowel. Again, my learners often have trouble with this: there can be a deeply ingrained urge to rhotacize the letter ‘r’ and produce a short vowel, so ‘artist’ becomes ‘artist’, ‘bird’ ‘bird’, ‘market’ ‘market’ and so on. As you listen and repeat, have a think about whether this could be you!

1. art
2. article
3. bird
4. birthday
5. bored
6. chart
7. course
8. dark
9. dirty
10. first
11. large
12. market
13. modern
14. morning
15. nurse
16. party
17. perfect
18. skirt
19. short
20. sport
21. start
22. third
23. thirsty
24. warm
25. work

And a few sentences with these words:

• I had a perfect first day at work!
• It was a large, dark, dirty market.
• Good morning! I’m looking for a short sporty skirt.

And finally a couple of words with the letter ‘r’ in more than one place, with more than one pronunciation:

1. career
2. report
3. return
4. river
5. remember
6. farmer
7. order

…And a couple of sentences with those:

• The career report is in order.
• The farmer remembered returning to the river.