Main Site Blog Help

Pronunciation of initial "r"

Hi @YuQinCai, @Constance_Fang and the ChinesePod team, my question is this:

In the pronunciation-3 lesson of the “say it right” series, you nicely introduce the pronunciation of the initials

  • J, Q, X
  • Zh, Ch, Sh
  • Z, C, S
    I wonder how the pronunciation of the initial R works in Mandarin. I have the feeling that it is pronounced slightly different than, say, the “r” in English “right”, with the tongue being more at the front. Could you say more about this? :slight_smile:

Thanks!

1 Like

You can check out` Professor Xu’s video pronouncing the r sound here.

“R” sound is like “l” sound but not moving your tongue to touch your teeth like “l” sound, and not as back and curl as “r” sound in English.