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Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by wallflower on Thursday October 02, 2008 @10:11AM (#321715)
Now, if someone could teach me how to roll my Spanish R's - I've heard that if you don't learn by age 3 you can't but I want to disagree.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by gruseom on Thursday October 02, 2008 @11:42AM (#321794)
I've heard that if you don't learn by age 3 you can't

Nonsense. I learned to do it long after I was 3.

This might help: put your tongue (but not the tip) just above your teeth, let it relax, then blow air out so your tongue flutters.

Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by wallflower on Thursday October 02, 2008 @12:09PM (#321826)
I've heard someone explain to me that it's kind of like a flag fluttering in the wind. Except that your tongue is the flag. He recommended that I try to stick the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth and blow out hard - and resist the outward pressure (and the tongue will flutter back rapidly like a flag - the Spanish R vibration) - and once I got that, with time, the amount of pressure needed would relax.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by gruseom on Thursday October 02, 2008 @01:44PM (#321944)
That sounds about right. Only don't take this too literally:

stick the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth

If I do that, it gets stuck. What I think you want is the hard palate (behind the teeth), not the top of the mouth, and keep it relaxed.

I guess I should add that I'm neither a native speaker (though I've studied more than one language with rolled r's) nor have I any experience teaching this skill. I'd bet money you can learn it, though.

Edit: one more thing - you may find it easier to try words that end in a rolled r. The words that begin with a rolled r are a little harder (to me).

Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by euccastro on Thursday October 02, 2008 @07:07PM (#322249)
Except there are no words in Spanish that end with a rolled r.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by maw on Thursday October 02, 2008 @10:13PM (#322363)
Not quite true. If a word ends in an r and the speaker is thinking about what to say next, he may in fact roll the r. Think about this sentence: "Estuvimos allí por... un rato." Often it'd be punctuated with ellipses, but in some sense it might be better written "Estuvimos allí porr un rato."
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by euccastro on Wednesday October 08, 2008 @05:15PM (#327109)
I've heard quite my share of Spanish and never happened upon that. Rather, people would extend the r without rolling it.

And in any event, that wouldn't mean there are words in Spanish with rolled final r's, which is what was being discussed, just that people might pronounce a word that way.

Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by tordek on Sunday October 05, 2008 @01:40AM (#323907)
Argentinian here... and I'd usually extend the o, not the r, so "Estuvimos allí poor un rato."
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by riahi on Thursday October 02, 2008 @11:06PM (#322380)
Also, a lot of native spanish speakers pronounce all initial r's as rolled r's.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by tordek on Sunday October 05, 2008 @01:42AM (#323912)
That's the way spanish is pronounced.

Radio is "Rradio".

I've found amusing how some people who learn english as a second language end up pronouncing spanish as "espanish", since no spanish word begis with s(consonant), except for sh.

Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by euccastro on Wednesday October 08, 2008 @06:15PM (#327168)
"A lot" meaning all of them, because that's the norm.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by akd on Friday October 03, 2008 @04:05AM (#322540)
nonsense.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by euccastro on Wednesday October 08, 2008 @05:08PM (#327099)
Cite one?
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by ars on Thursday October 02, 2008 @08:41PM (#322321)
You flutter your tongue? I've always used the soft part of my mouth, in the back. Maybe I'm making a different sound though.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by icey on Thursday October 02, 2008 @12:18PM (#321838)
Most people who have a hard time rolling their Rs are trying too hard; and it makes their tongue too stiff. Try relaxing your tongue (in other words, make it loose and lazy) and then try to roll your Rs.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by msb on Thursday October 02, 2008 @11:39AM (#321791)
I took Spanish all through High School and never managed to get the roll down. Then in my early thirties I was challenged by a friend and in about a week it finally clicked. The problem is, I find it very hard to keep up without practice and it is never flows out naturally.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by hhm on Thursday October 02, 2008 @10:26AM (#321739)
Really? I speak Spanish so I have the inverse problem; my English pronunciation is funny.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by adnam on Friday October 03, 2008 @11:53AM (#322756)
But you can spell "pronunciation", which many english speakers have difficulty doing :)
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by hhm on Sunday October 05, 2008 @06:34PM (#324403)
Thank you :) My spelling is ok (more or less), but my pronunciation is terrible.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by tharris on Thursday October 02, 2008 @01:09PM (#321894)
Maybe I could do it when I was three, but I definitely learned when I was in my teens.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by ced on Thursday October 02, 2008 @02:14PM (#321987)
I learned it accidentally when I was 21. I was making fun of a children cartoon commercial, by repeating it in an Italian mafia boss voice. Lo and behold, the Spanish r came out of nowhere.
Re:Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly by ComputerGuru on Thursday October 02, 2008 @10:59AM (#321759)
I was taught Spanish in second grade (Sacramento district public school system) and can roll the R's just fine - I believe I was 6 or 7 at the time.