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We call it erre moscia (wimpy r): it sounds like French R, usually in its most exaggerated forms it resembles a vibrant V.
The reason I asked was that we have the same phenomena in Russian ( where the "r"s are similar to yours)
Some people can't pronounce it properly (they pronounce it the way you describe) and it were mostly Jewish kids who were pronouncing it this way. Why is it - I have no idea))))
Okay, so the lips are in a similar position for the English /w/ and /r/. It is true that little children sometimes have trouble with the /r/ sound and substitute /w/, but it had not occurred to me that they might sound similar to speakers of other languages.
Actually I didn't find this situation until I read something like the blog. I just pronounce /r/ without noticing the position of my lips.
Anyway, the method is very useful for Japanese who learn English. I think the purpose of preparing the /w/ first is to prevent Japanese from pronouncing retroflex flap or [l].
Listen whoever you are - we were having a nice conversation here with Old China with tea and crumpets about the letter "R," and you barged in like... like.. an elephant into China shop with your "Received Pronunciation" and your reps ratio that no one cares about.
You have nothing to brag about in that department yourself so let us be and talk about the letter "R" all we want.
Hi five OldChina))))
I barged in........
I had the first reply in the thread............Check it out.
I wonder if you also have difficulty with English comprehension? Wouldn't surprise me.
A topic on as noble a subject as phonetics is no place for argy-bargy tantamount to wrangling
And he who barged-in ('first' or otherwise) must needs barge-out. If he cannot understand the standard pronunciation, let's put it as bah·adzh-out
Never been able to master the TH sound despite going to speech therapy, and I can't roll my Rs for Finnish. Useless in both languages *sigh*
TH can be a hard sound for English-speaking children, too, and is one of the last typically mastered. My son, who is a native speaker, could not articulate either of the TH sounds at the age of 8 (he substituted F and V). Of course, this was exceptionally late, so he went through a short course of speech therapy, which did the trick.
Non-native speakers tend to use either s/z or t/d for the TH sounds. There are a few dialects which use t/d, also.
TH can be a hard sound for English-speaking children, too, and is one of the last typically mastered. My son, who is a native speaker, could not articulate either of the TH sounds at the age of 8 (he substituted F and V). Of course, this was exceptionally late, so he went through a short course of speech therapy, which did the trick.
Non-native speakers tend to use either s/z or t/d for the TH sounds. There are a few dialects which use t/d, also.
I'm a native English speaker and always substituted D for TH (and V for F and got M and N mixed up, speech therapy files those though). Now my poor kid only really heard English from me so she does the same, also substituted W for R and Y for L.
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It is true that little children sometimes have trouble with the /r/ sound and substitute /w/, but it had not occurred to me that they might sound similar to speakers of other languages.
with your "Received Pronunciation" and your reps ratio that no one cares about.
