Mmmph.
The wikipedia page on rhotacism states that Lenin had it.
[quote=“turner, post:70, topic:92118”]
This got me thinking. R is hard. Every kid I know who was learning to talk starts out substituting the “w” sound. I don’t ever remember teaching my kids how to make the “r” sound. eventually they just did. How do people learn how to make difficult sounds?
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Well, that’s a curious question. I think it has to do with our inherent language ability. We pick up speaking by copying the sounds around us. Learning to talk is a slow process of making sounds ever more close to the ones used around us. Thus, children naturally learn the language (or languages) they learn in the home through immersion. I think it has to do with our young brain plasticity.
Practice. And yes, occasionally some people can’t figure it out and have speech impediments.
By the way, having paid attention to r’s because of this site, one of the things I learned is that the American version of the r is different that r in other languages. We typically bunch our tongue toward the back of the mouth, whereas they extend the tip of the tongue forward towards the alveolar ridge. That is why they can roll or trill - their tongue is actually shaped differently. I never could roll my r’s until I learned this trick.
Also, this affects how Spanish r’s are spoken in rapid conversation, why hearing a name like “Perez” sounds like they are saying Petez. It is because the rapid extended tongue r is pronounced with an alveolar tap, the same way we in English say a d or a t, like in “ladder” and “later”.
And that contributes also to the similarity of l and r in Japanese, because the tongue is more extended, so the variation in sound between the two is less to begin with.
(Okay, I can’t figure out why that second quote doesn’t work.)
I’ve been able to roll my Rs since I was a kid if I was trying to imitate a Scotsman, but it wasn’t until just a few years ago when I learnt this about raising the front of the tongue instead of the back that I was able to do it in Spanish. 
Would the actual Latin be Phallus Magnus or Phallus Maximus?
I could not pronounce the American ‘r’ as a small child. My parents thought it was a hoot to drag me out in front of friends and neighbors to tell them that when I gweu up I was going to be a nosse and dwive a cow.
I was a pretty shy kid and their laughter did nothing to help me become more social. But i did learn to pronounce r the American way. arrrrrgh.
He doesn’t sound much like Elmer Fudd to me, he more swallows his R’s than pronounces them like W’s.
Not sure what you mean here. In American animation sound and live action are recorded first and the animators work to match the animation precisely to the sound and action.
You made me look, got one thing wrong and one correct.
In the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons from Jerry Beck he reports that I was wrong about the voice of Sleshinger, he dubbed himself in a short like You ought to be in pictures, but I was correct about the camera they used to record the live action footage, it was silent. Mel Blank dubbed the voice of all the other live characters.
The bit of Sleshinger not being aware of his voice as being the inspiration of Daffy Duck’s voice came from Chuck Jones and others.
My niece (pushing 50) is a highly regarded Speech Therapist. At a family function late last year, I asked her what is the official name for this “impediment.” She said that there isn’t one. Go figure.
Peter Cook reflecting on the intricacies of “mawwiage.” A comedy classic! “So tweasuwe youw wove…”
In my youth, I had this speech impediment. I was also from New Jersey, or New Joisey as I pronounce it. But Rhotacism and the New Jersey accent were two different things. Once the speech pathologist “cured” me of the Rhotacism, the New Jersey accent was just considered an accent, not needing more speech therapy, at least by the school district. I suppose one could hire a speech pathologist to get rid of an accent.
So I Can say Roger Rabbit instead of Woger Wabbit
I still can’t say, drawer, Jersey, car keys the way the rest of you do.