Spanish has two rhotics; a simple voiced alveolar tap /ɾ/ (vibrante simple) and a voiced alveolar trill /r/ (vibrante múltiple), as in pero (but) and perro (dog). The tap is produced with a single swift contact of the tip of the tongue, while the trill is produced with several such quick contacts. The tap is similar to the Scottish pronunciation of r in words like three or curd. Although pronouncing an alveolar approximant (English r) is a noticeable sign of a foreign accent, it is still worth explaining to your students that they should not worry about rolling their r’s as long as they don’t “swallow” them. 

In most British dialects, r in syllable-final position is not pronounced; morning, car. This is an automatic process, so often English speakers are not aware of carrying this phonological rule over to Spanish and might pronounce amó (he loved) and amor (love)  in the same way. It requires a good deal of practice not to drop coda r’s.

Tap or trill?

The distribution of the two rhotics in Spanish is quite special. While they are contrastive in intervocalic   

position; pero – perro, caro – carro, quería – querría, a Roma – aroma etc., in other contexts there is no contrast. 

Only the trill occurs:

• word-initially; rosa (rose)
• after land n; alrededor (around), Enrique

Only the tap occurs:

• after a consonant in the same syllable; fraude (fraud), brazo (arm)
• word-medially before a consonant;carta (letter)
• word-finally; mar (see)

If the r is preceded by an /s/, the sibilant is usually deleted and a trill is pronounced las rosas [laˈrosas].

At higher levels: You might mention that in utterance-final position, /ɾ/ is often devoiced and has a number of pronunciation variations. 

Ideas for exercises

1. Make a list of words and phrases with r’s in syllable coda and make your students regularly practice them. 
2. Collect phrases like dar ocas vs. da rocas; salí rápido vs. salir rápido and ask your students whether they are pronounced the same way or not and why. 

Activity

Listen to the speech of this student and try to identify the most important inaccuracies in his pronunciation. Focus on the consonants only. 

Feedback: Student 3

You can compare your answe with ours in Section 6.