# Icelandic: trilled "r"



## AmberShum

Hi guys! I'm doing listening with "_Íslenska fyrir alla 1_" and I'm confused with the trilled r.

The woman reader sometimes didn't make the "r" trilled. Instead, she pronouced it like an English "r" or a "l". For example, "rétt", in my ear, sounds like "létt". Not all the "r" though. I'm not sure if it is her individual habbit or it is not rare in Icelandic speaking.
"R" at the end of a word. For example, matur. I really don't know how "ur", the ending sound is made. It sounds different from a trilled r that I know.
Last, trilled R almost drives me mad! I was told to do "lalala...", which can make my tounge softer so that when I blow air to my tounge tip the tounge can vibrate. I keep doing "la", but everytime I blew air my tounge kept still and did not relax. I've watched many videos that taught people how to make a trilled r. But I just don't know when I can get it. It's frustrating...


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## Ben Jamin

You think certainly about "trilled R", not "thrilled" (to thrill: to cause (someone) to feel very excited or happy, or : to feel very excited or happy about something).


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## AmberShum

Ben Jamin said:


> You think certainly about "trilled R", not "thrilled" (to thrill: to cause (someone) to feel very excited or happy, or : to feel very excited or happy about something).


Oh yeah! Thank you for pointing it out! I made that mistake before and now again...


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## Ben Jamin

AmberShum said:


> Hi guys! I'm doing listening with "_Íslenska fyrir alla 1_" and I'm confused with the thrilled r.
> 
> The woman reader sometimes didn't make the "r" thrilled. Instead, she pronouced it like an English "r" or a "l". For example, "rétt", in my ear, sounds like "létt". Not all the "r" though. I'm not sure if it is her individual habbit or it is not rare in Icelandic speaking.
> "R" at the end of a word. For example, matur. I really don't know how "ur", the ending sound is made. It sounds different from a thrilled r that I know.
> Last, thrilled R almost drives me mad! I was told to do "lalala...", which can make my tounge softer so that when I blow air to my tounge tip the tounge can vibrate. I keep doing "la", but everytime I blew air my tounge kept still and did not relax. I've watched many videos that taught people how to make a thrilled r. But I just don't know when I can get it. It's frustrating...


Try to start pronouncing a dental non aspirated T (like in Italian) and a trilled R afterwards. Don't mix it with an L. This won't work, the L has a different place of articulation than R, but close to dental T.


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## Silver_Biscuit

It took me almost a year of living in Iceland and speaking Icelandic every day before I was able to roll my r's. Don't expect it to necessarily come quickly or easily if the sound is not in your native language.

It sounds like you are having problems differentiating between l and r. I would work more on that than actually really rolling those r's, because rétt never sounds like létt, even if the speaker doesn't go all out with emphasising the trilled r.

Icelandic r is indeed not always pronounced very strongly - in some positions it is quite soft and you will not really hear the trill. At the end of words it sounds (to me) somewhat similar to 'sh' even, although I know it's not.

I am not a linguist, though, so I have quite a shallow understanding of phonetics and am unable to talk about it in a technical way.


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## Thorey

AmberShum said:


> I'm not sure if it is her individual habbit or it is not rare in Icelandic speaking.



It's common, especially in the capital. The r is often just "one trill" and is generally not as strong as the Spanish r.

In some areas, e.g. in the north or east, the r is sometimes stronger. Also whenever you want to emphasize something, you are loud, or you are simply yelling.


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## AmberShum

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Icelandic r is indeed not always pronounced very strongly - in some positions it is quite soft and you will not really hear the trill. At the end of words it sounds (to me) somewhat similar to 'sh' even, although I know it's not.



Yes, "r" at the end sounds a bit like "sh" to me also!


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## AmberShum

Thorey said:


> It's common, especially in the capital. The r is often just "one trill" and is generally not as strong as the Spanish r.
> 
> In some areas, e.g. in the north or east, the r is sometimes stronger. Also whenever you want to emphasize something, you are loud, or you are simply yelling.



Thanks for that information, Thorey!


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## AmberShum

Ben Jamin said:


> Try to start pronouncing a dental non aspirated T (like in Italian) and a trilled R afterwards. Don't mix it with an L. This won't work, the L has a different place of articulation than R, but close to dental T.



But I was told that it would take quite a long (and probably hard) time to remove the "t" sound after one sucessfully pronounce trilled R by this "tr"/"dr" method...?


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## Ben Jamin

AmberShum said:


> But I was told that it would take quite a long (and probably hard) time to remove the "t" sound after one sucessfully pronounce trilled R by this "tr"/"dr" method...?


It took me many months to learn the French "r dorsal". I learned it both between vowels and after and before consonants. When you learn after T and D, try other consonant combinations, and then go over to intervocalic pronunciation.


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## AmberShum

Ben Jamin said:


> It took me many months to learn the French "r dorsal". I learned it both between vowels and after and before consonants. When you learn after T and D, try other consonant combinations, and then go over to intervocalic pronunciation.



Oh OK. Thanks!


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## Þórir Pétur

I know this is quite old but I want to point out that the final 'r' is usually pronounced voiceless at the end of a word, or at least before a pausa. This is the same voiceless 'r' that is pronounced at the beginning of word when it is written 'hr'. 
Icelandic is actually one of the rare languages that has voiceless sonorants, and similar devoicing before a pausa happen to 'l', 'n', 'm', the soft 'g', the voiced 'f' (i.e. 'v'), the hard 'l' (i.e. the 'll' sound) and even to 'ð' (which makes 'það' at the end of a sentence often sound like 'þaþ').
This end-devoicing is optimal, and does differ from speaker to speaker (just like how trilled the 'r' is pronounced isn't fixed in stone), but the word initial 'hr', 'hl' and 'hn' are always pronounced with voiceless 'r's, 'l's and 'n's.

Anyways, that is the reason why you feel like the last 'r' sounds like a 'sh'. It's because it isn't always voiced (very much like how 's' is a voiceless version of 'z') and sounds therefore quite differently from a normal voiced 'r'.

Wish you good luck with getting the trilled 'r' if you haven't already (I am almost two years late to this conversation after all) and have a nice day =D


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## Þórir Pétur

Þórir Pétur said:


> This end-devoicing is optimal


That was supposed to be "optional". Sorry XP


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