Rhoticity: the pronunciation of /r/

1. Practise a (non-)rhotic accent: the reading passage

2. Listen and repeat: minimal pairs in a rhotic and non-rhotic accent

3. Listen and repeat: minimal pairs with /l/ vs /r/

Consonants are important for understandability (Jenkins 2002). Some speakers do not make the same distinction between /l/ and /r/ as in English. This video explains the English pronunciation of /l/ and /r/.

4. An analytical exercise: Variant pronunciations of /r/

British English has an alveolar approximant /r/, and American English a retroflex approximant /ɻ/. There are many other variant pronunciations of 'r'. You can listen to them in this online chart (e.g. alveolar tap or flap /ɾ/, uvular trill /ʀ/, and uvular fricative /ʁ/ ). They do not bear on intelligibility, but research has shown that they may be remarked upon (Van Den Doel 2006, Beinhoff 2009). What pronunciation do you have?