IPA Symbols for the R Sound

Jim gives an overview of the phonetic symbols that represent the various R sounds that occur in accents from around the world.

Here's a transcript of the video:

Hey there, Jim Johnson for Accent Help here, and I had further questions about symbols for the R sound, so I want to dig into the various ones that are represented on the phonetic chart from the IPA.

So first of all the one that probably is the most common one for people to use as in the word RED. That would be this turned R. So it's this R that's turned upside down, and that's the one that represents the sound like RED.

There's also, on the chart you'll see that occurring right here as an approximant that happens right around the gum ridge behind the upper teeth. Well a little ways up from that, under trill, you'll see this R. So that would be as in Spanish the word for dog, being perro. So that trilled R that would be represented by this.

And as I explained in another video, this is sometimes just used for the R sound overall, no matter how it's actually occurring.

Another one that I think is really important for you to recognize is this one that looks like that same R, but without the extra little stalk up the side there. So without that sticking up there, this is the tap or flap R. So this is the one that would be in the Spanish word for B U T but: pero. As opposed to dog perro, which is spelled with two R's. This one spelled with one R. So this is that tapped R.

This also really commonly occurs for Americans and others for T's and D's between vowels, as in "Betty botter bought some butter." That would be this tapped R sound that very very commonly occurs there.

You also end up with some other major R sounds that get used. You end up with this small cap R. So it's a capital R that is a little bit smaller, and this is another trill. So this is very much like this one. It occurs over here, so it's uvular, it occurs at the uvula, and so that's the one that you may think of as a French or German R. That GGG it's almost a gargled R: "Around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran." Right?

So if it gets tight enough, or I should say, it's this right balance when you're dealing with trills of them being tight and loose in slightly different spots. So if you get all the way to that trill, then it's represented by this.

Whereas, if it's that little bit more open and loose, it would be represented by this R sound, which occurs in roughly that very same spot there. It's uvular, and it is the voiced version there, but it's just a fricative rather than a trill, which means that there's friction sort of moving through that space. So this would be the trill GGG, and this would be ggg, almost like you're swallowing it. I like to think of doing a really loose far back G. guh guh guh ggg and then loosening it up so that it starts to become that R sound. So it happens way back there but it's a fricative.

These are the big major ones there. 

Another one that I would say that that occurs not uncommonly that's close to this guy and it appears in the line of the approximants there, it's this R here, which is the retroflexed R, which means that it happens a little bit further back. This is one of the ways I think of expressing that sort of hard southern Texas R. Red red. That harder R. That's one way of expressing it.

Another way of expressing it is bringing us back to this symbol, simply utilizing this symbol, and then putting this little wavy line in it, which represents, it's a diacritic within the IPA that means velarized or pharyngealized, basically meaning it moves back in the mouth. So that might be a very, another way to express this same thing, because when people do this harder R, that oftentimes people just associate with Americans in general, but is especially true in the South, that harder R is, sometimes they talk about tongue bunching, the back of your tongue sort of bunching up. And I think this may be the best way to represent it within the phonetic alphabet.

Another couple of Rs that do exist but you won't find them on the consonant chart, and really you're not even going to find them on the rest of the full chart of the IPA, but they very commonly occur, that would be the vowel versions, which are these guys. This is how they're most commonly used.

So this would be the er sound and this would be the ER sound. So it seems like they're the very same thing. This is the stressed version. This is the unstressed version.

Very commonly, this is used for that vowel R occurring after vowels as in fear fare. Whereas this is most commonly used just for a word like her or heard or first. And this would be the unstressed version so you might have words where you have further murder. So you can actually have both of those occur in a word. Usually this will be in the stressed syllable.

This may occur alone but it may also occur with a vowel before it because this is the more vowel associated R. Hopefully your brain's not swimming now, but there are a lot of Rs to deal with.

The thing you've got to be careful about is if you do deal with that more broad transcription where you just use that one you've got a lot of Rs to represent, and now you've used the basic R sound for that.

And if you look at Jerry Blunt's dialect materials, which were made a long time ago, he tended to use that for the regular R, but then when he got to Scottish and some other accents, he had to start switching around what he was using to express them, and it just didn't match up with the IPA. It doesn't match up with what we know today with it, so it's really challenging the moment you start to generalize about it. Because we really do need to get more specific when we're getting into accents.

For more information on Rs and accents, check out AccentHelp.com.