Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I've heard that a lot, and I always thought it had to do with lazy talking (not moving your mouth much). I do think that's part of it, and some people do that more than others.
But the thing about having a potato in your mouth is it pushes your tongue down and back, into your throat. Which is something you need to say the American "r" and a lot of other sounds, like "w" and the dark L like in "pull." It's hard to teach, and very hard to unlearn. It's part of the characteristic American sound.
German is basically the opposite. You can see the difference here, with a German speaker talking in an MRI. There's a lot of space between the back of the tongue and the back wall of the throat. And here's a picture of someone saying an American "r". The base of the tongue is all bunched up in the throat.
I stg when I speak English, it’s with the front third of my mouth and when I speak German, it’s the back third (excluding the “L” sound). Realizing that helped me cultivate a much better accent in German