Consonant /r/ phoneme

The /r/ sound is a consonant in English, written with the letter <r>. It tends to pose challenges for ESL/EFL learners, particularly for those L1 has no similar sound. In older language textbooks, it is referred to as a liquid consonant. In modern terms, it is an approximant consonant, or in layperson's terms, a semi-vowel or semi-consonant. The correct symbol in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is /ɹ/, but for the sake of convenience, the symbol /r/ will be used here.

Linguistic description

• Place of articulation: The tongue tip approaches the avleolar ridge (the gum ridge above the upper teeth) or behind the alveolar gum ridge; thus, it is alveolar or post-alveolar.
• Manner of articulation: It is classified as an approximant, that is, it is produced by narrowing the air passageway between the tongue tip and the alveolar region, but not enough to produce any friction in the airstream.
• Phonation: It is voiced, i.e., the vocal cords (glottis) are in vibration.

In older texts, it was classified as a liquid, along with the /l/ sound. This, however, is a very outdated and imprecise term, as "liquid" was used for alveolar sounds that did not fit neatly into major categories like stops. The tongue tip creates a narrow passageway as it approaches the alveolar region, but the air simply flows through this passageway. For this reason, it is called an approximant, which falls between fricatives and vowels in terms of sonority. Thus, /r/ belongs to the same category as /w/ as in "watt" and the "y" sound as in "yes"

The fundamental frequency produced by the glottis is modulated by the narrowed passageway, creating extra harmonic frequencies, which give the /r/ its distinct sound.