The British R Pronunciation | Technique, Linking, Intrusion

Listen carefully to the R sound in each of these words and phrases. Rain, car, car alarm, saw it. Now listen again more carefully. Rain, car, car alarm, saw it. Did you notice something? The R in each of these words and phrases behaves completely differently. In rain, the R is very clear. In car, it's completely silent. In car alarm, the R is silent on its own in car, but it comes back again when we link it to alarm. Car alarm. And in saw it, we can hear the intrusive R. And if you look at the spelling of saw, you can see that there's no R in the spelling. The R sound is probably one of the most fascinating sounds that you can learn in British English. So today you're going to learn how to pronounce the R sound in British English, including when the R is silent, when to use the linking R in connected speech to help you connect to the next word, and when the R appears in speech even though it's not in the spelling. In other words, we're going to look at the intrusive R. We're also going to look at the difference between rhotic and non-rhotic accents, which basically means accents that pronounce the R versus accents that don't. My name is Emma and welcome to my channel Pronunciation with Emma, where I help English learners from around the world to improve their British English pronunciation. I'm a Cambridge CELTA qualified teacher with a degree in linguistics, a master's degree in teaching English, and over 16 years of teaching experience. Before we get started, I've put together a free cheat sheet that you can download to follow alongside this lesson. It includes extra exercises to help you practice your pronunciation of the R sound, and you'll also practice when to leave it silent in British English. Plus, there's a set of phrases and sentences that you can practice your linking and intrusive R's in natural connected speech. It's completely free to download and the perfect companion to today's lesson. The link to download it is below in the description of this lesson. So, let's start with how to actually make the R sound in British English, because it's quite different from the R sound in many other languages. To do the British R sound, I'd like you to use the peanut butter technique, which I teach to all of my students. I'd like you to imagine that you've been eating some peanut butter, and it's stuck to the top of your mouth and the inside of your teeth. You're going to use the sides of your tongue, here, to come up and touch the top inside parts of your cockroach up here. So, this will create a curved shape like this with your tongue. Now, the trick here, and the most important thing, is that the tip of the tongue is either down behind your bottom teeth here, or it's just kind of floating in the middle of your mouth. The key thing is that it is not touching the top of your mouth. This is how you get the sound R and R, which exists in other languages. In most British English accents, this R sound is used instead. So, there's no contact with the top of the mouth. Also, notice the mouth shape. When I do the R, R, R, it's almost like I'm doing like a duck face at the same time. So, R, carefully not touching with the tip of your tongue. And that's the R sound in English. So, here are some words to practice. A common mistake is saying, And that's because you're touching the top of your mouth with the tip of your tongue. There's no contact. The only contact is with the sides here that come up to touch the inside top teeth. So, let's practice. Listen and repeat. So, make sure that when you have a consonant and a R together, you're pronouncing them almost at the same time. Notice that my tongue and my lips are already in the R position as I'm doing that G. The same with price. My mouth goes straight into that R. Make sure you're not adding an extra syllable either. So, you're not saying Just one clean transition. Around, every, terrible, tomorrow. Good. Now, here's something important. That sound you just practiced only appears in British English when the R comes before a vowel sound. When the R comes before a consonant sound or at the end of a word, something different happens. English accents around the world can be divided mostly into two groups. A rhotic accent is where every R in the spelling is pronounced, no matter where it appears in the word. General American English is one of the most well-known rhotic accents. So, in General American English, the words all have that really strong and clear R pronounced in them. However, a non-rhotic accent is one where the R is only pronounced Most British English accents are non-rhotic. So, an R at the end of a word or before a consonant is usually silent and the vowel is usually made longer, unless it's at the end of a word and a single weak syllable. Then, it's usually a schwa. So, let me show you what I mean. All these words have an R in the spelling, but in British English, we don't pronounce it. Listen to the American pronunciation and then the British non-rhotic pronunciation. So, the rule in British English is simple. If the R comes before a vowel sound, you pronounce it. If it comes before a consonant or at the end of a word, it's silent. So, here's a little test for you. Tell me if the R in these words would be silent or pronounced in non-rhotic British English accents. How about this word? Or, if you want to put it in the past, This has a clear R because it's at the start of a word and it's also before a vowel. How about this word? Why? Because there's a consonant after it. How about this one? It's between two vowels. Even though that Y is technically a consonant letter, it's still a vowel sound. How about this one? We've already looked at this one. Because it appears at the end of a word. How about this one? It's pronounced. And this one, the final word? So, at the end of a word, so silent. So, this is why British English vowels before a silent R tend to be longer or they become a diphthong. The R kind of gets absorbed into the vowel, let's say, and it lengthens it or it creates a diphthong. For example, Now, it's important to know that not all British accents are non-rhotic. Some regional accents in the West Country, parts of Scotland, and other areas are actually rhotic. But standard Southern British English, and most of the accents you'll hear across England especially, are non-rhotic. And one more thing. If your goal is to speak with more of a British accent, meaning more like modern RP or RP, then removing the R will help you achieve that. Keeping that R and saying things like bird, whirl, car, and so on, will give you more of an American sounding accent. Now, do you remember the rule I told you about before? That R is only pronounced when it comes before a vowel sound? Well, the same rule also applies across word boundaries, not just within a single word. This is called the linking R, and it's one of the features that makes British English sound so fluent and connected, especially when you listen to native speakers and fast speech. It's also a big reason why you understand TV shows and films with the subtitles on, then when you turn them off, you don't understand anything, and it sounds like they're speaking really quickly and using really long words. This is because they're connecting all the words together. So a word that ends in R or RE might have a silent R on its own, but if the next word starts with a vowel sound, that R comes back in to help link the two words together. Listen to these examples. We add that R back in there to connect it to the next word. Now, a little trick here is that you add the R to the beginning of the next word. So it's almost like you're saying car alarm, but say it quickly. Make sure you add aspiration to that T as well. In a sentence. Here are some more examples to practice. Listen and repeat. Pause the video if you need more time. Now, if you need to listen to those phrases much more slowly and carefully, you can change the speed of this video down below in the player settings here on YouTube. So this is why native speakers sound so fluent and can speak so quickly. They're not stopping and starting between the words. So if you find that you're pronouncing every single word clearly and carefully, then it's not going to sound very natural. Now, you've already learned about the linking R, so let me tell you more about the intrusive R. This one surprises a lot of my students, and even some native speakers don't realize that they're doing it. The intrusive R is when an R sound appears between two words, even though there's no R in the spelling. It happens when one word ends in a more what I like to call relaxed or in-between vowel sound, so your mouth isn't spread like E and it's not super round like OO. And the next word starts with a vowel sound. Can be any type of vowel sound. So English doesn't like it when a word ends in a vowel sound, and then the next word starts with another vowel sound. We have to insert another sound to help us connect them together. The vowel sounds that most commonly trigger intrusive R's are sounds like R, OR, ER, and the schwa, UH. Listen to these examples. It's important to say that the intrusive R is a natural feature of spoken British English. Native speakers do it automatically, without even thinking. So don't feel like you need to use the intrusive R if it feels a bit strange or unnatural to you. However, you do need to be aware of it, because it's going to greatly improve your listening comprehension. So if you hear someone saying Lauren D'Orda, you're not going to be thinking to yourself, what's Lauren? Lauren? I also want to quickly clarify the difference between the linking R and the intrusive R, because they do exactly the same job of linking words together, but they're called different things for obvious reasons. Put very, very simply, the linking R is used when the R is in the spelling already. For instance, here, it has an R in the spelling. So we say, here it is. The intrusive R, however, is where there's no R anywhere in the spelling. The R is inserted, it is intruding. It's an intruder. Think of it like this. And it's just used to connect the vowel sounds together between the two words. For example, I like the idea of it. Idea doesn't contain the spelling R. But idea of, the intrusive R is used to connect the two vowels together. I like the idea of it. Both of these R features a British English pronunciation, and they make you sound more natural and fluent if you use them. Okay, so let's test everything you've learned today with a little quiz. I'm going to read 10 sentences, and I want you to listen carefully and decide if the highlighted R is pronounced, silent, a linking R, or an intrusive R. Feel free to pause after each sentence if you need more time. And if you'd like the answers to today's quiz, they're included in the free PDF cheat sheet, which you can download using the link below in the description. Are you ready? Let's start. She drives a fast car. The rain started this morning. It's a far better option. I saw it far away in the distance. Emma is going to teach us. The dog's fur is long. I need to think it over again. I saw an old man. I saw them talking. So, how did you do? To check your answers, remember to download your free PDF cheat sheet, which includes all of the explanations from today's lesson, along with extra practice activities, and the answers to today's quiz for you. The link to download it is in the description of this video. So, to quickly summarise everything we've covered today. You've learned how to pronounce the R in British English. You've learned when the R is silent in British English. You've also learned how to use and pronounce the linking and intrusive R sounds. And you practiced all of these, and hopefully downloaded your free PDF cheat sheet for that extra practice. If today's lesson was useful, then remember to give this video a like, and subscribe to my channel for more British English pronunciation lessons. I will see you in the next lesson. Bye-bye.