How do romanian roll their R's?

Jennie931
Posts:6
Joined:2011-10-31, 22:59
Real Name:Jenny Barrett
Gender:female
Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)
Contact:
How do romanian roll their R's?

Postby Jennie931 » 2012-01-16, 19:35

Hello everyone :)

I am learning Romanian at the moment. I was wondering do Romanian people roll their R's like Italians or Spanish people do? I have realised in a video that this girl who is Romanian doesn't roll her R's strong but it's not a strong rolled r, it's like a soft rolled r. I know how to make a rolling r sound but I am just confused. Can anyone help me?

User avatar
md0
Posts:8188
Joined:2010-08-08, 19:56
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: How do romanian roll their R's?

Postby md0 » 2012-01-16, 20:30

soft rolled r? Sounds like a flap to me.
"If you like your clause structure, you can keep your clause structure"
Stable: Cypriot Greek (el-cy)Standard Modern Greek (el)English (en) Current: Standard German (de)
Legacy: France French (fr)Japanese (ja)Standard Turkish (tr)Elementary Finnish (fi)Netherlands Dutch (nl)

Jennie931
Posts:6
Joined:2011-10-31, 22:59
Real Name:Jenny Barrett
Gender:female
Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)
Contact:

Re: How do romanian roll their R's?

Postby Jennie931 » 2012-01-16, 20:34

meidei wrote:soft rolled r? Sounds like a flap to me.


I don't know, its like a rolled r but not as strong as a Spanish Rolled R. Thanks for your advice :)

AdiJapan
Posts:251
Joined:2008-10-08, 9:43
Real Name:Adrian
Gender:male
Country:JPJapan (日本)

Re: How do romanian roll their R's?

Postby AdiJapan » 2012-01-17, 5:18

Jennie931 wrote:I am learning Romanian at the moment. I was wondering do Romanian people roll their R's like Italians or Spanish people do? I have realised in a video that this girl who is Romanian doesn't roll her R's strong but it's not a strong rolled r, it's like a soft rolled r.

There is some variation even among native speakers, but basically the Romanian r's are flaps, and by flap I mean a trill with a single vibration cycle (the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge just once). However, at word beginnings r's can have several cycles. The same happens when a word is emphasized; in literature and also in informal writing you can sometimes find words spelled with three r's in a row, such as rrrepede and drrracului, which reflects the way these words are pronounced when they are strongly stressed.

There is no phonemic distinction between the alveolar trill and the alveolar flap in Romanian, so whichever you pronounce, the word meanings won't change. If you trill too much you will give the impression of being somewhat emphatic, but that's about the worse that can happen.

There are Romanian speakers who don't pronounce the alveolar trill at all; many of them simply because they can't. Instead, some use the flap everywhere (and nobody notices), while others use the uvular trill (like French r's). In the latter case people do notice, but get easily used to it.
[flag]ro[/flag] maternă  [flag]us[/flag] pretty well  [flag]fr[/flag] pas mal  [flag]ja[/flag] 順調

Jennie931
Posts:6
Joined:2011-10-31, 22:59
Real Name:Jenny Barrett
Gender:female
Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)
Contact:

Re: How do romanian roll their R's?

Postby Jennie931 » 2012-01-17, 11:45

AdiJapan wrote:
Jennie931 wrote:I am learning Romanian at the moment. I was wondering do Romanian people roll their R's like Italians or Spanish people do? I have realised in a video that this girl who is Romanian doesn't roll her R's strong but it's not a strong rolled r, it's like a soft rolled r.

There is some variation even among native speakers, but basically the Romanian r's are flaps, and by flap I mean a trill with a single vibration cycle (the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge just once). However, at word beginnings r's can have several cycles. The same happens when a word is emphasized; in literature and also in informal writing you can sometimes find words spelled with three r's in a row, such as rrrepede and drrracului, which reflects the way these words are pronounced when they are strongly stressed.

There is no phonemic distinction between the alveolar trill and the alveolar flap in Romanian, so whichever you pronounce, the word meanings won't change. If you trill too much you will give the impression of being somewhat emphatic, but that's about the worse that can happen.

There are Romanian speakers who don't pronounce the alveolar trill at all; many of them simply because they can't. Instead, some use the flap everywhere (and nobody notices), while others use the uvular trill (like French r's). In the latter case people do notice, but get easily used to it.


Thank you very much :)


Return to “Romanian (Română)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests