Alveolar Trill (Rolling R) tutorial in Cantonese (to be English subtitled soon)

• published: 30 Dec 2007
• views: 175322

Below is a brief translation done by a user MrPangutube, I hope this helps the English speakers. part 1 Introduction explains along the lines that this lesson is about the alveolar trill and the sound from the alveolar ridge doesn't exist for people who speak cantonese or english and so is difficult for the people of Hong Kong [who are mostly bilingual - cantonese\english] part 2 Within the diagram of the head (Fig 1), look at the alveolar ridge (presenter underlines in red). Where is it exactly? it is the bit at the top of the mouth which sticks out and where there is a little bit of a hard area and this is called the alveolar ridge. This is where the sound is produced from. How do you produce this sound then? I originally didn't know how to produce this sound. It is only when I was learning Italian which has this sound that I learnt how to do this. part 3 The sound that you produce when you snore is produced from the back of your mouth (presenter highlights in yellow) - i.e produced from the yellow section and has this kind of sound (presenter gives 2 example sounds - both are ok) so it has a snoring sound. part 4 The second thing that you have to do. The tongue - where is the correct place to put it? (diagram 2 appears). When you pronounce the english "t" and "d" - the consonants, the position of the tongue is very similar. put the tip of your tongue on the alveolar ridge (presenter circles this position) part 5 There should be a gap between the tongue and the top of the mouth which looks like this (presenter highlights in yellow). If you have this, you know your tongue is in the correct position and you can produce the alveolar trill sound part 6 Take your tongue and stick it to the top of your mouth like you would do when pronuncing the "t" and "d" It doesn't have to be too high - a little lower is also ok (presenter draws a red line to highlight this). You are still leaving a gap at the top of your mouth part 7 So how do you release the air to produce this sound? Like what we said before - a snoring sound. (presenter gives example sound). The position of the tongue and the snoring sound together is enough to produce the alveolar trill sound Your tongue will then vibrate. You shouldn't move your tongue yourself or the sound won't be correct. part 8 Lets go back to the original diagram (presenter shows Fig 1 again). Remember when you were a kid and when you use to play and blow bubbles - you use this kind movement of the mouth to produce the alveolar trill sound (presenter circles this in red and gives an example) so we know the vibration required and the air that passes through our mouth and we also know we didn't force our lips to move, it was the air being blown that moved them. part 9 The alveolar trill is similar, we are not controlling the tongue, its the air that we push through the mouth that vibrates the tongue. (presenter shows diagram 2) Position your tongue as you would do when pronouncing the "t" and ""d" and leave a gap behind the tongue at the top of the mouth part 10:Then with a snoring like sound, push the air through your mouth. Pushing the air through the mouth - don't be impatient when doing it or too slow but saying that, you can also make the sound if you do it fast or slow. Practice it a few times and you should be able to figure out how to make a small trill sound - a small tongue vibration (presenter gives an example) If you keep blowing the air continously, you should be able to make a longer trill sound (presenter gives another example) part 11 So what words can you practice with? (presenter shows slide with R). In Italian, the R is this. When they pronounce R its "erre" (presenter gives example) (presenter highlights RR). When you come to pronuncing the RR then you vibrate your tongue at this point. You can stay with the RR and produce a long trill sound (presenter gives example) part 12 (presenter shows next slide). When you can do the R you can try some other words - these english words - Roger, Russia and the Italian word Roma If you still can't do it after practicing and have some sort of block, then I will see if I can find another way to show you. everybody take care. [The end] Thanks for the comments, I'm going to make it subtitled in English soon. Or I would make an English version of the video. Which one would you prefer? Let me know by sending me messages or leaving comments here.