french r in international phonetic alphabet It’s easy to become frustrated with this little letter.

It seems so innocent, so harmless but many of us fumbled upon the letter r. English speakers in particular struggle with the French sound R, so from an English speakers point of view, here is what I learned say the French R but I’ve also include some other methods and techniques from around the web that might call to you.

Listening to French sounds as spoken by a native speaker can really help you tune in to unfamiliar sounds. Have a listen to some of the French phonemes spoken by our French consultant as you tackle the French R and at the end, try out your new skills in the “Try it!” section.

Everyone learns in different ways so it seems best to give you a range of options to choose from when learning the French R. So here are some of the best ways that I have found to say the French R in no particular order.

Top Tip
-Record yourself! It sounds scary but no-one else needs to hear you.
-Use our online voice recorder within our Audio Lounge if your browser supports flash.
-If you use Windows, there is a built in sound recorder that is extremely easy to use.
-When you’ve made a recording, compare it to the French sounds here at spellandsound.com.

Garrrgle your R

Take a very small mouthful of water and gargle (only a couple of beats). When your comfortable with only producing 2-3 beats of a gargle, move on to step two.
Take another very small mouthful of water and gargle whilst voicing the English r sound. Hopefully, it sounds similar to the sound from step 1.
Pat yourself on the back. You are now pronouncing an exaggerated version of the French R sound.
Take note of where the tip of your tongue is when you gargle your R. It should be pushed up against your lower front teeth.

The trick now is produce the same sound without the mouthful of water! It does require an amount of phlegm to get things going. It might feel a little too phlegmy or a little exaggerated, but hang in there. Try to avoid the temptation to roll your r like Italian speakers might. It’s a guttural sound produced at the back of the throat which can be difficult to make when the letter R is placed next to certain letters. The closest sounds to the letter R can effect how it is pronounced.

Take the word “rouge” for example, the shape of your mouth when it makes the R sound is different to the shape of your mouth when you say the R in “arbre”. For “rouge” your lips should be pushed forward as if the say the “oo” in fool when you make the R sound at the back of the throat, but your lips are in the position to make the sound “a” as in father, when you make the R sound in “arbre”.

Say K

Laura K. Lawless from About.com recommends a slightly different strategy. I quoted her steps word for word so you can try it out exactly as she intended.

Open your mouth
Close your throat as if you were going to gargle or to avoid swallowing a mouthful of liquid, and say K carefully several times.
Pay attention to where in your throat the K sound is made (Laura calls this the K Place)
Begin slowly closing your throat, until you can almost feel the K place. Your throat should be only partially constricted
Tense the muscles around the K place
Gently push air through partially constricted throat
Practice saying Ra-Ra-Ra (where R = steps 4-6) everyday.

Say Arab!

Poly-Vous Français? recommends you warm up your throat with a a-ab combination. This combination then moves onto something more, the a-hab. After a number of times with a-hab, you should be able to “cough” up a a-hrab. The idea is that the a-hrab evolves into the French R with some practice.

Hold your tongue, literally

Some time ago, I came across a youtube video regarding the French R where you hold down the tip of your tongue with a pencil, although I would recommend you use the end of spoon, whilst trying to say R.

This method really gets you to isolate and use the back of the throat.

For the life of me, I cannot find the video that goes with this method so I can offer the appropriate credits. If you come across it, please contact me.

How did you go?

Well, were you able to nail that French R sound? It takes a huge amount of practice for most English speakers including myself. After 3 months I could pronounce a slightly over exaggerated R as long as it wasn’t coupled with any tricky consonant combinations. It wasn’t until I had been at it for 6 months before I was comfortable with using the sound R in a variety of words.