English pronunciation Speakmethod.com: English Pronunciation Resource

Online Classes Pronunciation Facts R, Th, T and other sounds 500 Words Practice
Local Classes Business Communication TOEFL PrepESL Stories
Contact Us Vowel Sounds
Grammar and IdiomsFor Young People


English Pronunciation: Speak the R

In British English and some southern US dialects, the R sound is dropped when it is in the middle or at the end of a word. In standard American English, no R sounds are dropped. So a British person says "afte- wo-k" and an American says "after work."

To speak th R sound, make sure the tip of your tongue does not touch the roof of your mouth. The edges of your tongue should be tensed and your throat should be a little tight. You do not want to trill the R as many languages do. The American R is a strong, but straight sound. Get feedback from friends or a qualified teacher, then practice, practice, practice! If you are used to pronouncing the R another way, it can take some effort to learn the American R sound.

R-sounds from the 500 most common words in American English:

Two office workers discuss a project and make small talk.

A: I have the three edited forms from their office. 

B: That’s great. Let’s review them. Before we turn in our response, let’s try to meet here and work through our ideas together.

A: To have measurable results about our products, the forms need to be direct to record the true responses of our clients. 

B: They need to cover a lot of ground, reach a wide area of our clients’ possible problems and interests.

A: Can we meet early tomorrow morning? Do you think we’ll need one hour or two hours? 

B: One hour is fine. Should we mark up our corrections on paper?

A: If writing it down first is easier for you, that’s fine. Eventually, we will present our work to the group with a Powerpoint presentation. Did you read the newspaper this morning? 

B: No. why?

A: There was a really good article on families around the world. There were many pretty pictures of girls with their mothers and boys with their fathers. 

B: The photographer must have traveled to many countries. I remember traveling to Ireland. The natural scenery there is remarkable. Very green. Beautiful plants and trees were growing everywhere.

 

From the 500 Most Common Words: area, before, country, direct, early, every, father, for, from, form, first, girl, great, ground, group, grow, here, hour, interest, mark, measure, morning, mother, paper, picture, power, problem, product, reach, record, remember, through, together, travel, tree, true, try, turn, three, their, very, were, where, write, work, world


Some common technology R-words:

Refugee Office

1. Rose works with a nonprofit organization that helps refugees find housing, ESL services and employment. She coauthors proposals and creates promotional materials on the organization’s web page.                         

2. She sends a lot of electronic mail to multicultural groups that may recruit refugees for employment. She spends many hours formatting electronic ads in order to network with various groups around the city.

3. She enjoys building profitable interrelationships with similar refugee groups and employment services. Many of her documents provide basic information about refugees and international issues.  

4. One of Rose’s new networking tools for the upcoming year will be a CD-Rom with refugee stories and interactive resources that help people to imagine living conditions in refugee camps. For this project, she coordinated with several coworkers who had refugee backgrounds.

5. The CD-Rom is a first step in a larger fund-raising project to fund a large center that refugees could access. This center would provide instruction in ESL skills and computer resources.  

6. Though many refugees have limited educational backgrounds, they need to understand the World Wide Web and what it will mean to their children. Many refugees push their children to succeed and attend universities.

7. Some of these kids will grow up and learn basic programming languages. They will promote awareness about refugees through the online international community.

 

Build your R-Sound with words from the 500 most common SAT vocabulary:

Words with R in the middle: 

amorous: relating to or showing love

austere: very bare, bleak, simple

belligerent: ready to fight, war-like

brazen: excessively bold

discreet: prudent, done in a quiet way

differentiate: to distinguish, to make different

erroneous: in error

extricate: to remove from, get away from

invariable: not changing

meritorious: deserving praise

notoriety: known in bad regard, infamy

 

Words with the first letter R:

radiant: bright, beaming

rancid: rotten, spoiled

recalcitrant: defiant

recalibrate: to adjust, make corrections

rectify: to set right, correct

refrain: to hold oneself back  

reiterate: to repeat

relish: to enjoy very much

renovate: to restore, return to original state

reprehensible: deserving criticism

repulsive: disgusting

retaliation: revenge, punishment

retract: withdraw, take back

retribution: vengeance, revenge

revel: to enjoy

ruddy: having a healthy, reddish color

ruse: a trick 

R Story:

1. This is a story about 2 lovers named Rita and Robert. Robert was a recalcitrant who spent his days creating ruses to entrap consumers. 

2. He pretended to renovate old houses, when in fact, he reveled in rancid, inhuman living spaces. Allow me to reiterate this: Robert enjoyed being repulsive to others and his reprehensible business dealings caused him to be a notorious character in the city newspapers.

3. He relished the moment when a new homeowner’s face changed from radiant to austere at the sight of the home mistakenly purchased through him. His personality was so obviously recalcitrant that few people sought retaliation. They assumed he would never rectify his brazen deceits. 

4.  Rita, on the other hand, was a discreet woman who had, once upon a time, extricated herself from an erroneous relationship. She was an amorous woman who had a thing for belligerent men.

5. Unfortunately, she had trouble differentiating between the invariably belligerent and those who had firmer control over themselves. She dealt with this flaw in herself by forcing men who were in love with her to accept retribution from those whom they had wronged. 

6. If a man retracted his amorous inclinations while his face turned a ruddy color, she knew he did not have the inner strength to refrain from unfortunate behavior.

7. Surprisingly, Robert, when confronted by Rita, chose to recalibrate his inner humanity-meter. He became a wonderful real estate salesman whom everyone described as meritorious. Never again did his name appear on the notorious-business-man lists. 

English Pronunciation Classes

You can practice on your own, but you will move forward more quickly if you get an instructor's feedback. Try our Seattle English pronunciation classes or take English pronunciation classes online.

Contact Us

Send us a message and give us your ideas or questions about learning American English pronunciation.

Back to Speakmethod home.

Speakmethod.com: Resources for English Pronunciation, Seattle, WA