jchthys:Replies to ceigered’s points:

1. Karlina is Canadian (Vancouver), to be specific.

2. I actually have heard people pronounce the t and d distinctly before r. I find this abnormal and possibly incorrect.

3. I do believe that the guttural r is at least better than the English one. I have heard an Australian using it in the podcast Tuj!. (Though if I were you I’d work for the gold standard!)

Cheers for clearing up those points amiko!

Canadian, American... part of the same general American super-continent right?

Tuj is one podcast I've heard before, I've heard many pronunciations on that due to the number of people and music they have on it. Some things I noticed was 'Auxstralja' and one guest speaking with a full on Aussie accent (completely understandable, but English consonants, skipping 'r' after vowels ktp. I do like that podcast despite that because you get to hear more variety

I don't think you're the best judge on whether someone with an aussie accent is understandable.

I can't do a rolled r, so I just do a flap, but I can do a rolled after t's and such because it's much easier in that position.

I pronunce English pretty pedantically, and never affricatise my t's and d's.

Rogir:I don't think you're the best judge on whether someone with an aussie accent is understandable.

Apologies Rogir, I was speaking relatively to myself.

erinja:I also find the "ĝ" sound to be pervasive in the American dr. It isn't reflected in most dictionaries, but truly, listen more closely next time you watch a tv show or movie in English.

Fascinating. Now several native English speakers have said this, yet it totally is at odds with my own experience (as another native English speaker). Maybe people in Austin (where I lived for many years) can pronounce d and t better before r than the average American?

To seek more clarity, consider the phrases:
"Edge right" and "Ed right", and "Match right" and "Matt right", spoken with no pause between the words. When you say them, do they sound the same? Based on what you've said, I suppose "yes". But I say (and hear from English speakers I know) a very clear difference between such pairs.

And even if you do tend to habitually say "dr" as "ĝr" and "tr" as "ĉr", is it actually difficult for you to consciously say "dr" and "tr" instead of "ĝr" and "ĉr" if you are thinking about it, in phrases like "Ed right" and "Matt right"?

dr becomes ĝ, frequently. tr becomes ĉr (train => ĉrejn)

This is truly fascinating and surreal for me. It's as if I'm in a Twilight Zone episode, and suddenly everyone around me is saying "Yes, of course the daytime sky is the same color as the nighttime sky. Does it seem different for you?"

What many English speakers do not realize is that the English R is not even *noticeable* for many foreigners. I was shocked the first time I heard this. It was from a French person. He could not even hear the English R, when Esperanto was spoken with a strong English-speaking accent. To his ear, it was as if the R was not even there. It's because our R is really alien to a lot of European languages.

True, and also a funny ironic example, since the French R in particular is also quite unusual (occurring at the back of the throat instead of the front of the tongue as in most languages), and many French Esperantists pronounce the Esperanto R badly. For me, the French R is often barely recognizable as an R. In practice, this has sometimes caused serious difficulty in understanding certain French speakers for me (especially if they combine it with other Francisms, like accenting the last syllable, saying "en" like "on", etc).

Allow me to try and tackle that beast of a post Russ

To seek more clarity, consider the phrases:
"Edge right" and "Ed right", and "Match right" and "Matt right", spoken with no pause between the words. When you say them, do they sound the same? Based on what you've said, I suppose "yes". But I say (and hear from English speakers I know) a very clear difference between such pairs.

It's funny - because there is a difference for me too. However, if you spelt 'ed right' as 'edright', then there would be no difference for me. I guess when I say 'ed right' there is an extremely small and unnoticeable schwa that carries off of the voicing of the 'd' and then separates the 'd' and 'r'. The 2nd example, 'match right' and 'matt right' doesn't really work the same for me, as like many australians and cockney speakers, the final 't' gets turned into a glottal stop

And even if you do tend to habitually say "dr" as "ĝr" and "tr" as "ĉr", is it actually difficult for you to consciously say "dr" and "tr" instead of "ĝr" and "ĉr" if you are thinking about it, in phrases like "Ed right" and "Matt right"?

When I say 'ed right' as 'edge right' it sounds odd, but if I tried to pronounce 'train' as 'tr' instead of 'ĉr' it'd be very hard. I'm trying it right now and I sound like I'm trying to badly imitate a Mandarin accent.

"Yes, of course the daytime sky is the same color as the nighttime sky."

Thanks to my h1n1 induced sleeping patterns, that's exactly how I feel!

However, if I switch to a full on RP accent I can kind of feel the 'tr' and 'dr' becoming a lot more like 'tr' and 'dr' than 'ĉr' and 'ĝr', but there is still some affricativisation there (I don't think that's a word though)

Maybe people in Austin (where I lived for many years) can pronounce d and t better before r than the average American?

Unlikely - that would mean they're also pronouncing it better than the average Australian, and that would hurt our national and unfounded pride of speaking better than americans (or so we somehow convinced ourselves), so I cannot agree
But in all seriousness, it's an interesting phenomenon which I think might be comparable to the k to ĉ to ŝ (currently represented by 'ch') sound change in French. Maybe years from now, Austiners will be one of the few remaining people to speak 'classical English'

More thinking about dr/tr turning to ĝr/ĉr for some (many? I just don't know them in person? English speakers:

For you who do this, does it depend on the following vowel? E.g. try these:

Drab! Tram.
Drain. Train.
Dream. Tree.
Dry. Try.
Droid. Troy.
Drum. Trump.
Drew. True.

Do you say a real "dr/tr" for some of them and "ĝr/ĉr" for others, or is it ĝr/ĉr across the board?

What about preceding consonants or vowels?
Android, wondrous - ndr or nĝr?
Strike, pastry - str or sĉr?
Metric, retro - etr or eĉr?

(Now I'm imagining "retro" sounding like "retch-row" - do people really do that???)

When I watch Star Wars, it really seems to me like they're saying "android" and "droid" with "dr" not "ĝr".

Thanks for any further info, thoughts, etc!

For me, I pronounced almost all of the ones on your list with dr and tr turned to ĝr and ĉr. Only 'Android' and 'wondrous' seem like they could go either way, depending on the time of day, or the phase of the moon, or my level of sleep-deprivation.
I'm australian though, so I may not be a typical english speaker . In fact, I do wonder if other places do this altered pronounciation thing as much as we do...

russ:"Edge right" and "Ed right", and "Match right" and "Matt right", spoken with no pause between the words. When you say them, do they sound the same? Based on what you've said, I suppose "yes".

Not to me no. Matt right are two separate words so the t and the r are separated by a space, which when spoken has a very small pause inbetween. So for me matt right sounds "correct". Whereas a single word with tr in it would sound like ĉr.

russ:
Drab! Tram.
Drain. Train.
Dream. Tree.
Dry. Try.
Droid. Troy.
Drum. Trump.
Drew. True.

Do you say a real "dr/tr" for some of them and "ĝr/ĉr" for others, or is it ĝr/ĉr across the board?

Each of those words for me is ĝr/ĉr across the board.

russ:(Now I'm imagining "retro" sounding like "retch-row" - do people really do that???)

Yes.

ceigerd:I don't know how an English speaker can be comfortable not pronouncing 'train' and 'drain' like 'chrain' and 'jrain' - otherwise it sounds like 'tehrain' or 'twain'.

For me that's absolutely right. I try saying train and drain "correctly" and it just sounds ridiculous, like "twain" and "dwain", I sound like someone who can't say their r's. I've asked a few people round the office here too and it's the same for all of them.

I'm with nshepperd and tommjames

'strike' sounds close to 'sĝrike' to me as well as 'sĉrike' funnily enough, although I think that's ANOTHER phenomenon in the English language where many unvoiced consonants inside of words become voiced - but that's probably better documented and more widespread in other languages too (e.g. Danish, occasionally Japanese)

EDIT: I think I've noticed the Star Wars thing. However, on Australian television I hear the 'cxr' and 'gxr' thingo too so it's definitely in the media as well.