LeicesterLad  +  251434 Wed, 02 Aug 06 03:27 AM This may be slightly off topic, but something that's intrigued me for some time is how Israeli (Hebrew) speakers pronounce the letter "r" when they speak English.  It's not like the plain r sound of American or southern British English, or the trilling scottish r, or the other ways of pronouncing r found throughout Europe.  It seems to involve the back of the tongue and the soft pallette.  Is this a sound unique to Hebrew? LeicesterLad Joined on Fri, Sep 16 2005 N E England (Orig from Leicester) Junior Member 81 British English, Speak English

	LeicesterLad  +  251780 Wed, 02 Aug 06 11:34 PM By plain "r" sound, I meant "r" when it appears at the beginning of a word - such as "rush" or "ring" or when combined with another consonant(s) in the middle of a word, like "scrape" or"anthrax".  To my non-professional ear, American English and southern British English use an identical sound here, even if the vowel sounds are somewhat different.  I wasn't referring to RP, which - as many have pointed out (Nona especially!) - is an increasingly rare form of English, but rather, the English as spoken in the south east of the country.  I take it one of the ways of pronouncing "r" in RP to which you refer is with a "trill" (ie, vibrating the tip of the tongue behind the upper teeth).  Amongst southern English speakers, this is a sound I have only ever heard in pre 1960 movies! LeicesterLad Vowels, Consonants, American English, British English