sudanglo:Cannona, that may not help our Chinese friend if he has learnt the English (ie Queen's English) pronunciation of 'butter'

Certainly this can be a matter of confusion. For example, in my dialect of American English, I most definitely pronounce in "butter" with a strong retroflex rhotic, but I recognize that some "Queen's English" style speakers may not pronounce it at all. Unfortunately, this can be a source of confusion. Indeed, Schleyer thought that /r/ was such a bedeviling phoneme that he left it out entirely of the original Volapük (although de Jong brought it back in in a few contexts), mingling /r/ and /l/. At least he tried to deal with the matter, however questionable his approach may be. Given that some kind of /r/ and /l/ phonemes are present in Esperanto, I myself suggest that learners and speakers try to make some kind of contrast this side of the Fina Venko.

bartlett22183:
Indeed, Schleyer thought that /r/ was such a bedeviling phoneme that he left it out entirely of the original Volapük (although de Jong brought it back in in a few contexts), mingling /r/ and /l/. At least he tried to deal with the matter, however questionable his approach may be.

That's very interesting.
Purely as a hypothetical, and not because of any desire to reform Esperanto, what in your opinion would be the best way for an IAL to deal with the "r" issue?
I ask because you have stated several times that you have knowledge of several IAL's.

Larmel:You can sometimes tell where Esperantists come from by the way they pronounce the letter R! The typical English or French pronunciation is not correct for Esperanto - although if you pronounce it that way, people will still be able to understand you. I found this video on YouTube which explains how to pronounce the R used in Italian and Spanish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9eN2B7Wj68, which is the same as the sound used in Esperanto. I see there are several videos on YouTube explaining how to trill your Rs, and you might find some of them helpful.

Foje eblas diveni, de kie venas esperantisto, per lia/ŝia maniero prononci la literon R. La tipe angla aŭ franca prononcoj ne estas ĝustaj por Esperanto - sed se vi prononcos ĝin tiel, la homoj tamen komprenos. Mi trovis jenan filmeton en YouTube, kiu klarigas, kiel prononci la italan aŭ hispanan R, kiu estas sama kiel la sono uzata en Esperanto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9eN2B7Wj68. Mi vidas, ke en YouTube troviĝas pluraj filmetoj, kiuj klarigas kiel "ruli" la sonon R. Eble kelkaj el tiuj estos helpaj por vi.

Dankon!kio vere konfuzas min, estas ke se estas la Franch maniero aŭ hispanan manieron pronouce la 'r'.

marbuljon:I've also found this confusing. When I was looking for info, some lessons said this and some said that. While I understood that the r should be rolled, r's are rolled in different ways in different languages (ex. rolled with sound, rolled without sound, rolled short or long).

Also I'm not sure if it's polite to ask here and hijack the thread - but how is ŭ pronounced?? I keep hearing "most people can't pronounce ŭ" but I haven't even seen/heard an explanation of how it should be, then.

Exactly how I feel...
As for the ŭ,vikungen has answered it, hope that helps.

I've read and heard that the "r" can be correctly pronounced either guttural as in French or rolled like in Norwegian, and I guess Spanish etc. but that it should not be pronounced as in English.

That's really confused! it's not having standars,how do you know it is the right way when you say it?

Emm.. En tie-cxi estas bona respondito(eble, angllingvo estas nekomprenata de mi). Mi respondis en alia loko.

I've not had a problem reproducing this sound, but my 9 year old daughter struggled with it a bit. I read somewhere that a good way to learn it is by saying the word "butter" fast. Then, slowly start losing the "bu", and once you've managed that, start practicing saying that with various Esperanto words. It only took my daughter a few minutes to get it, but my wife is a native Spanish speaker, so that might have given her an advantage, as she certainly heard it a great deal when growing up.

Luck.

Your daughter is smart~
I'll practice in this way,thank you

Fenris_kcf:

L_B_:Anybody know how to pronounce the 'r'?

No, we all do it wrong.

Really: What do you anticipate to get as response to this question? And why do you post in the English forum?

why do you say that?
I assume that there are easy ways to make the 'r' sound, such as the "butter" like Luck said.
As for where to post, it's just that I can only understand English and Chinese,and I'm not so confident with my esperanto, so I posted it here.Are you suggest that I should post in the esperanto forum?

sudanglo:Cannona, that may not help our Chinese friend if he has learnt the English (ie Queen's English) pronunciation of 'butter'

you are good.In fact,many Chinese person ,especially Cantonese,don't need to roll their tongues to speak their mother language.But I am OK with that.Is this OK that I have learnt American English?
BTW,I am a "she"

L_B_:

I've read and heard that the "r" can be correctly pronounced either guttural as in French or rolled like in Norwegian, and I guess Spanish etc. but that it should not be pronounced as in English.

That's really confused! it's not having standars,how do you know it is the right way when you say it?

Because it can usually be said in slightly different ways while people still understanding the meaning without problems.

Consider these examples used in Esperanto words:

Alveolar Tap
Alveolar Trill
Voiced uvular fricative

They all differ in the way the "r" is pronounced, but all of these words could have been understood with every type of "r"-pronunciation used here.