How to pronounce the French ‘R’
How to pronounce the French ‘R’ is one of the main difficulty for beginners! We are going to practice now saying the ‘Ruh’ wich is different from the English R. Before I start, please have some water handy and warm up your throat a little …
How to pronounce the French ‘R’ with A
So let’s imagine that you have a sore throat, you are going to the doctor’s to get your throat examined. So you say what? ‘AH’…
Keep the tip of your tongue against your bottom teeth, tongue flat, mouth open, imagine you have some glue, and glue the tp of your tongue against the inside of your bottom teeth. Leave your mouth open… Allright!
Now go from ‘A’ to ‘AGA’… A, AGA….
Now say AGA again and feel where the back of your tongue is as you say that ‘GUH’
Do you feel it way toward the back?
Now we are going to say AGA again but with a scraping sound such as AGA… ARA…. Leave the tip of your tongue glues to your your bottom teeth… Great!
Try slowly with your mouth open and your tongue on the bottom… AGA… ARA…
One more time…
AGA…. ARA… almost like gargling… AGA, ARA…
How did it work? …
How to pronounce the French ‘R’ with I
Now, let’s try with ‘ee’…
I … IGI…. IRI … I… IGI… IRI
How to pronounce the French ‘R’ with U
Let’s try with the French ‘U’… To make the sound ‘U’, make the sound ‘oo’, and with your mouth all puckered say ‘ee’ but don’t move your lips… oo … u
With your mouth in that position…say, U.. UGU.. and the scraping sound… URU
Now let’s try with only the ‘R’ sound .. we are going to cut off the vowel sound…
We’ll do one more time with the vowel there and take it off.
ARA..keep your mouth there.. and say ‘RA’…
One more time… ‘ARA’… ‘RA’, notice the mouth stay open.
‘I’… ‘IRI’… ‘RI’ almost like a big smile
‘OO’ .. ‘U’.. ‘URU’ … ‘RU’
French ‘R’ PRACTICE
Riz
Ré
Rat
Roux
rot
Rue
Garage
Arriver
arrêter
Héritage
Sérieux
Horoscope
Cire
Serre
Sare
Sour
Sort
Sur
Soeur
Soir
Now let’s practice with R after ou before a consonant.. the hack is to split in two different syllable
Sortie
Garçon
Attendre
Peindre
Attendre
Droit
Comprendre
Now
Toi/trois
Doigt/ droit
Quoi/crois
Pois/ proie
Allright, you made it!! Thank you again, and please share with your friends, comment, and join the Facebook page or Instagram account!
Make sure to check out my workshops to be fully ready when you go to France! Merci !!