# Spanish Trill?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 4, 2007, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645 "2007-01-04T04:21:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Benighted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Benighted)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/1 "2007-01-04T04:21:26Z")
I can’t roll an ‘r’ in Spanish. I can produce a uvular trill (the French trill), but not a lingual trill. How can I master this sound? Please, please, please, don’t offer daft advice like “repeat the word ‘ladder’ 500 times.” I’ve sifted through enough of that crap after performing a Google search on this topic. I’d like useful, linguistically-sound advice.
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### Author:  [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/2 "2007-01-04T04:44:30Z")
I can’t even do the uvular trill… My attempts as Irish-Gaelic suffer terribly from my inability to reproduce some of those sounds. Best I can do is get a little spit back there and kinda \*gargle \*it.
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### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/3 "2007-01-04T04:46:18Z")
close your lips, jaw and tongue down and build up some pressure, as you open your lips rapidly fill the gap with your tongue up to the roof of your mouth so you make a pfft sound. Repeat rapidly until you can get a motor boat sound going and then apply it to language. Hope that helps
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### Author:  [@Benighted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Benighted)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/4 "2007-01-04T04:50:59Z")
[QUOTE=outlierrn]
close your lips, jaw and tongue down and build up some pressure, as you open your lips rapidly fill the gap with your tongue up to the roof of your mouth so you make a pfft sound. Repeat rapidly until you can get a motor boat sound going and then apply it to language. Hope that helps
[/QUOTE]
I can make a motor boat sound, but that’s with the lips. It has nothing to do with the tongue.
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### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/5 "2007-01-04T05:23:59Z")
well thats one way to make a motor boat sound, I can do it with my tongue, when you can you’ll be able to do a spanish trill
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### Author:  [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/6 "2007-01-04T05:45:27Z")
[QUOTE=Benighted]
I can’t roll an ‘r’ in Spanish. I can produce a uvular trill (the French trill), but not a lingual trill.
[/QUOTE]
Same here. Sorry I don’t know what the answer is though.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/7 "2007-01-04T05:49:05Z")
I thought this was going to be a Mel Brooks thread.
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### Author:  [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/8 "2007-01-04T05:52:41Z")
[QUOTE=Gatopescado]
I thought this was going to be a Mel Brooks thread.
[/QUOTE]
_Voila!_
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/9 "2007-01-04T07:40:38Z")
Are you trying to do the single r or the double r? Most foreigners underdo the single and overdo the double.
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### Author:  [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/10 "2007-01-04T10:16:36Z")
My Spanish teacher recommended we get a toy car, and play with it. I am not kidding, she said make the engine noises and it would help you get the trick of it. “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrr” etc. 😉
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### Author:  [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/11 "2007-01-04T12:24:08Z")
Just cheat like I do and find a regional dialect/accent that doesn’t use the trill and use that one 🙂
I never could get it right, but have been quite happy speaking Portuguese with something resembling a Rio de Janeiro accent since their double-r sound is pronounced as more of a uvular throaty H. Problem solved.
I feel your pain on this one. I can watch my wife trilling at will for hours and will never figure out how to get my tongue to do that. Though I can do the car-engine thing, it just takes too much time and effort to get the tongue started, not something I can muster mid-word.
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### Author:  [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/12 "2007-01-04T13:59:28Z")
Well let me add that with enough practice, you can indeed acquire the ability to roll your r’s. It just takes practice –lots of practice.
About the third year of my teaching career, I was told over the summer that I would be teaching Spanish Level I to my eighth graders the following year.
Though my background is in French, the principal figured that that was close enough and even though I had never taken a formal class in Spanish before, we simply had to go with it.
I stayed a chapter ahead of the kids, practiced right along with them and worked on rolling my r’s incessantly –much to the consternation of my long-suffering wife.
After a couple of years –literally it took about two to three years- I was able to raise the tip of my tongue, relax it, and direct my exhale above to get the trill.
And now a sentence like: _El perro toca la guitarra en el carro_ –poses _no problema_.
_¡Buena suerte¡_
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### Author:  [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/13 "2007-01-04T15:29:49Z")
I know many native Spanish speakers who can’t do it. There is nothing more grating than hearing _arroz_ pronounced with a sort of asperated ‘k’ sound. I have to admit, it is usually done by my fellow Puerto Ricans.
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### Author:  [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/14 "2007-01-04T15:36:02Z")
[QUOTE=Biggirl]
I know many native Spanish speakers who can’t do it. There is nothing more grating than hearing _arroz_ pronounced with a sort of asperated ‘k’ sound. I have to admit, it is usually done by my fellow Puerto Ricans.
[/QUOTE]
🙂 yeah, we Puelto Ggicans do that.
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### Author:  [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2007, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-trill/386645/15 "2007-01-04T15:48:56Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo]
🙂 yeah, we Puelto Ggicans do that.
[/QUOTE]
Hee. I’ll cop to the ‘Puelto’ part.