"H. S. Teoh" <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote in message news:mailman.270.1331248862.4860.digitalmar...@puremagic.com... > On Thu, Mar 08, 2012 at 10:29:05PM +0000, Stewart Gordon wrote: >> On 08/03/2012 19:29, H. S. Teoh wrote: >> <snip> >> >Another thing is, I can't roll my R's. My tongue as stiff as a stick >> >and just refuses to roll anything, no matter how hard I try. >> <snip> >> >> I can't roll my tongue either. I'm told it's genetic. :) >> >> But anyway, to me, rolling Rs seems pretentious.... > [...] > > Well, it's pretentious in English, but quite mellifluous in Russian. :-) > Though I'm told that even for native Russian speakers, it's one of the > last sounds acquired, so it must be pretty difficult. (And to make > things worse, they have *two* rolled R's, one palatized, one not. As if > one R isn't hard enough already.) >
R in general is a very difficult sound no matter what variation of R. In native English countries, R is one of the most (if not the most) common sounds for kids to have touble with.
