R and T. Two letters I hate and they hate back

I have not really studied any foreign language except for Italian ( i only got into the basics and questioned the usefulness of the language due to... well almost nothing being written in it.) But, i would like to learn 3 languages in my lifetime. Russian, German, and Chinese. Preferably Chinese as a second language because it is supposed to be very difficult. So, toady i was looking at the Russian alphabet. It was cool because as far as i saw it had no rolls of rs. I knew that it had trills of ts but i didn't think that would be a problem. when i went to pronounce the word мечтать (to dream) i ran into problems. so it was like Meych- and i was saying tat at the end. Well, i have no idea how to trill that. The only combo i can semi-trill is tr. So how the hell do i trill? Same thing goes for rolling my r. it always ends up sounding like i have something stuck in my throat and i am gargling.

Is there something i am missing? my ts cut off after like the second vibration and my Rs make me sound like i am choking to death. When i was a young kid, i had to take speech lessons because i couldn't pronounce certain letters like R and L. Could this have affected my ability to do awesome sounds?

You can't trill a 't'. A 't' is a plosive, which means it is a one time sound. A trilled 't' is essentially a rolled 'r'. One in the same... it's an alveolar trill and it's perceived as a variation of R.

All Russian r's are 'rolled'. The t's are just t's, same as in English.

Your example word is myechtat.

Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_alphabet

To learn the 'alveolar trill', search Google for it and practice every day. It took me about 3 weeks to get it right. The easiest starting point is brrrrr and prrrr because the plosive start doesn't involve your tongue and forces you to push some air out. Definitely use more power than you need when practicing to get the tongue tip in motion.

Ankers away!!

ok, thanks. maybe i can roll my Rs a little. i will keep working on it.i was making the sound from my throat, not my tongue. but arn't i supposed to make that last a kind of an ya but not much y. because it has the Ь at the end? i was watching a youtube video of it and he said you always add a little y on vowels unless it is hard. Just making sure because another person on youtube said i had trill ts.

i can roll my rs in the uvular way though now. it is pretty cool. it is not as good as the tongue way, but i cant do it with my tongue. pressure just builds and my tounge pops down, or the air goes around my tongue. i can kind of do it like 2 vibrations but that is it. i will just keep working on it.

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Originally Posted by Serkat

All Russian r's are 'rolled'. The t's are just t's, same as in English.

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Indeed. I thought everyone knew that. :/

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Originally Posted by sheogorath

but arn't i supposed to make that last a kind of an ya but not much y. because it has the Ь at the end? i was watching a youtube video of it and he said you always add a little y on vowels unless it is hard.

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Not because it has the ь (soft sign). That only makes the consonant before it softer. Remember the difference between soft and hard vowels, though.

Hard/Soft
а (ah) / я (yah)
э (eh) / е (yeh)
ы / и (long E)
о (oh) / ё (yo)
у (oo) / ю (yoo)

Also, one other little comment: мечтать is "to dream" in the sense of "I dream about going to Paris some day." If you're talking about dreaming at night, then you would use "видеть сон" (to see a dream). :)

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Originally Posted by Amethyst Star

Also, one other little comment: мечтать is "to dream" in the sense of "I dream about going to Paris some day." If you're talking about dreaming at night, then you would use "видеть сон" (to see a dream). :)

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Ooh, I did not know that. I mean I knew the distinction, but I didn't know the word for dreaming, as in sleep.