I'm not sure how true this is, because I have left fixing my accent until after I get a good grasp on grammar, etc, but apparently practicing the sounds of a motor might help. Just try avoiding the car "vrr" that uses your lips. Try growling in the front of your mouth just at your ridge, etc. Personally I also find having fun with hissing like a snake helps. Instead of just a flat "ssss" try to vibrate your tongue (growl in the front) and produce "ssSSSssSS". (Huh, I hope this doesn't make me sound too immature!)

This has personally left me sure that I'm close to the sound but I still have trouble using it as an R... But it may help you a bit.

bartlett22183: They just have to accept that some (adult) learners will probably never be able to pronounce the language "correctly." But if some of them will never be able to do so, is there enough flexibility that they will be understood (in speaking)?

As you noted earlier in your message, if you try to reduce the phonemic inventory to something common and easy to speakers of every language, there's not much left. Even so simple a move as declaring "no L or R" means that "international" roots suddenly lose their recognizability. That's how Volapuk ended up with totally unrecognizable "international" roots.

There are a wide range of accents at Esperanto events. It is hardly the case that everyone has a perfect accent except the English speakers. Each nationality has its peculiar sounds and combinations that are not so natural, so you get used to hearing a lot of accents. Sometimes you have to listen hard to understand someone but everyone seems to manage fine. That's true even among the younger generation, who (by and large) speak with a much more 'international' accent than the older generation.

Yes, many English speakers have trouble with getting the preferred R, or they tend to use dipthongized vowels, or schwas. But French speakers often have an extremely recognizable accent, complete with French R (which is NOT preferable to the English R) and funny intonation. Speakers of Slavic languages often palatalize certain consonants and pronounce h like ĥ, so although their R's are fine, there are other issues.

We should all try to speak with the best accent possible - but English speakers are hardly the only ones that miss the mark.

Zafur: I have left fixing my accent until after I get a good grasp on grammar,

I wouldn't do that, personally. You don't want to reinforce bad pronunciation habits. If you're talking about saving the hard-core "R" work till later, then that's fine, but you should try to get everything else as accurate as possible, to get your mouth used to making the right sounds!

An interesting line of argument, Bartlett but maybe you exaggerate the difficulties in relation to the realities of Esperanto's use.

"it has been said that the intersection of the sets of phonemic inventories of all (or nearly all) human languages is so small as not to be adequate for designing an auxiliary language"

Maybe that's true if you include ALL human languages.

But experience shows that for speakers of European languages Esperanto's phoneme set does not create problems in practice for mutual intelligibilty.

So Esperanto (which is anyway overwhelmingly spoken by native speakers of European languages) can provide a simple solution for most of the developed world, as well as quite a few developing countries.

But also your line of argument neglects the reality that it is English that currently plays the role of world lingua franca and its phonology (with 20 vowel sounds and some relatively particular consonants) presents massive problems for foreign adult learners - even for those just 25 miles away on the other side of the English Channel.

Now if the world is not deterred from using English as a lingua franca, I don't think it will be deterred, on phonological grounds, from using Esperanto.

You make a pretty phonological point. But one has to take into account practical issues.

I wouldn't do that, personally. You don't want to reinforce bad pronunciation habits. If you're talking about saving the hard-core "R" work till later, then that's fine, but you should try to get everything else as accurate as possible, to get your mouth used to making the right sounds!

I do realize that. I know how to pronounce the vowels and tricky things like hx and c. It's mainly remembering that odd "stress on second to last syllable" rule in addition to keeping my vowels... clear and not schwa'd, etc. Regarding R, for now I either use an English R or my attempt at a flap. (Honestly I'm surprised people can't hear English R's the way they almost sound like growls... flapped and trilled r's sometimes leave me feeling like an some sort of stereotypical Asian and wondering "Is that an L, R, or D sound!?")
But anyways I mainly say that because I haven't had the chance to actually speak Esperanto yet.

mschmitt: Not necessarily. My status as an English grammar nazi remains unaffected! If, however, someone who speaks a different language challenges me to utter a word with a trilled "R," I might find myself in a pickle!

In any case, if I can dish it out, I can certainly dish it in; I actually do enjoy talking to people who will correct me and help me improve myself.

Unfortunately, constructive criticism is only effective in cases where the action being criticized is a matter of choice. Since this has to do with a physical ability I can't "will," the best I can do is acknowledge the deficiency and try to work around it.

The suggestions given about the "R" sound from other languages sounds enticing. In fact, I just experimented and found I can make a sort of vibration on my tongue by breathing a certain way as though I am trying to clear my throat, but it sounds guttural. Perhaps this is the German or French "R" being referenced. It must, since the throat movements I am making weren't mentioned in any of the videos or resources I looked into regarding the alveolar trill.

I appreciate you bringing in your personal experiences, Erinja. Regarding the imitation of the trill in commercials: was that something that just happened naturally, or did you, too, have to keep experimenting before you got it?

"rD" does appear to be an acceptable substitute in some cases. I have found it easier to pronounce at the beginning of the word rather than the middle or end. Also, it only works if the word is said quickly. If you slow down, well... busted!

I have not attempted any other alternative method to "faking" the sound yet.

Actually, the main reason why I started this topic was because I've been carefully considering whether this is a sufficient enough issue to deter me from learning a language that involves this sound. I've been considering Zafur's strategy: learn to speak the language within your abilities now, fine-tune it later! Of course, I was also concerned about cementing bad habits -- a possibility that was mentioned earlier; I wouldn't want to use what is supposed to be a temporary work-around so frequently that it becomes my standard.

I have concluded that I will go on with my education here. Although it is discouraging to be unable to learn and speak a language in a wholesome manner, I can still learn how to write it effectively and speak MOST of it . Should I learn how to trill later (and I genuinely believe it is inevitable), I can go back and practice the sound to break old bad habits and create new ones. The comments earlier stating that this isn't /merely/ an English speaker's dilemma and that ALL language accents bring something strange to the table is very encouraging.

If I didn't quote someone specifically or address a reply made directly, sorry; I read it, but there's a character limit to these replies! (arg!) I will research the alternative work-arounds given and follow-up in a while.

ReviewerOfTime:Regarding the imitation of the trill in commercials: was that something that just happened naturally, or did you, too, have to keep experimenting before you got it?

Honestly I don't remember, I was 10 or younger at the time. At that age I enjoyed imitating sounds, dog bark, goose honk, etc., and I guess that commercial was just an extension of that.

However when I studied Yiddish I had to learn another R entirely, the Yiddish R (which is a uvular trill, not too easy for me, still not too easy). I picked the hardest combination for pronunciation, which was using the R at the beginning of the word, followed in short succession by another gutteral sound, the Yiddish equivalent of ĥ. The name was Rachel, pronounced as "Roĥl" in Yiddish. And I pronounced it again and again, Roĥl, Roĥl, etc until I was able to get it. I just ... practiced until I got it. Until I sort of got it. It still isn't easy and I still don't do it perfectly.

At the same time I met a friend named Roey, an Israeli name. When I called his family to ask for him, I couldn't bring myself to pronounce his name with the American R, Ro-ee. I did my best to pronounce it with its correct Hebrew pronunciation. But I did get the odd occasion where his family was like "Who?"


Try your best but don't stress over it and be forgiving of yourself if you don't get it. You will meet many, many people with accents much worse than yours.

sudanglo:An interesting line of argument, Bartlett but maybe you exaggerate the difficulties in relation to the realities of Esperanto's use.
...
But experience shows that for speakers of European languages Esperanto's phoneme set does not create problems in practice for mutual intelligibilty.

So Esperanto (which is anyway overwhelmingly spoken by native speakers of European languages) can provide a simple solution for most of the developed world, as well as quite a few developing countries.

Silly me, I thought that Esperanto was intended for all people around the world, and not just speakers of European languages or some other "few developing countries." (If it is mostly for europhones, then why don't we just adopt Interlingua, which probably has more "at sight" recognizability for them than does Esperanto?)

sudanglo:But also your line of argument neglects the reality that it is English that currently plays the role of world lingua franca and its phonology (with 20 vowel sounds and some relatively particular consonants) presents massive problems for foreign adult learners - even for those just 25 miles away on the other side of the English Channel.

Now if the world is not deterred from using English as a lingua franca, I don't think it will be deterred, on phonological grounds, from using Esperanto.

You make a pretty phonological point. But one has to take into account practical issues.

Should Esperanto advocates -- are there really any finvenkistoj around any longer? -- just give up in the face of the juggernaut of English? True, I know from experience dealing with many would-be adult learners / users that English is actually a quite difficult language (phonologically and in a number of other other respects). Nevertheless, would "practical issues" lead us to suppose that advocacy of Esperanto as a true international auxiliary language (as distinguished, say, from Raŭmismo) is just spitting into the wind?

bartlett22183:Silly me, I thought that Esperanto was intended for all people around the world, and not just speakers of European languages or some other "few developing countries." (If it is mostly for europhones, then why don't we just adopt Interlingua, which probably has more "at sight" recognizability for them than does Esperanto?)

I know that you know this, Bartlett, so I'm saying it for the benefit of those who don't.

Every constructed language has a choice to make: where to place itself on the continuum of naturalistic languages (imitating "natural" languages as much as possible) to a priori (having nothing to do with "natural" languages, being completely made up).

Too far in the direction of naturalism and you give an undue advantage to speakers of the languages that your language is based on, and you tend to conserve more of the irregularities of those base languages. Too far in the a priori direction and you make the language equally difficult for everyone, in a bad way - everyone has to learn every single word from scratch, with nothing to relate it to. Interlingua is obviously pretty far on the naturalistic side. Lojban is an extreme example of the a priori side, Volapuk a less extreme example.

I think Esperanto does a good job of compromising between these aspects. Its phonemes aren't extremely easy for everyone, in an effort to preserve some degree of recognizability of words.

Being based on Indo-European languages is another good call. Wikipedia says that 46% of the world's population natively speak an Indo-European language (next in the list: Sino-Tibetan, with 21%). That doesn't even count the number of people who speak an Indo-European language as a second language, due to the legacy of colonialism.

It seems that basing the language on Indo-European roots, without overdoing the naturalism, is the fairest choice. A basic Indo-European vocabulary plus a simplified grammar and an easy way to construct new words - Esperanto does a good job with these things.

Of course if someone else felt that a simplified phonology was more important, or a different vocabulary, they could write their own language. But of course it's too late to make those kinds of changes on Esperanto.

Even so simple a move as declaring "no L or R" means that "international" roots suddenly lose their recognizability. That's how Volapuk ended up with totally unrecognizable "international" roots.

Swapping similar sounds and cutting out letters are different things entirely. If it were "Voldspuek", for example, rather than the chopped-up "Volapuek", it'd be more recognizable/easy to learn. But if you look at a language like Japanese, which doesn't distinguish r/l, you'll find that some international words are quite recognizable: "テレビジョン - terebijon".

razlem:Swapping similar sounds and cutting out letters are different things entirely.

It still comes down to design for pronunciation. Simplification of consonants was one aspect of that. Avoidance of consonant clusters was another.

Volapuk avoided putting two consonants together, in order to simplify pronunciation. Therefore your ""Voldspuek" would have been quite prohibited, with that lovely ldsp combination in the middle. I'm not convinced that Voludusupik (following the Japanese model) would have been any more understandable.