Decoding the letter R

r

right /raɪt/

IPA vowels

æ	ɑː
trap	father - start
e	eɪ	eə
dress	face	square
ɪ	iː	ɪə
kit	fleece	near
ɒ	əʊ	ɔː
lot	goat	taught
ʊ	uː	ʊə
foot	goose	mature
	juː	jʊə
	cute	cure
ʌ	ə	ɜː
strut	comma	nurse
aɪ	aʊ	ɔɪ
price	mouth	choice

IPA consonants

Normal sound: /b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, z/
ʃ	tʃ	ŋ
show	church	sing
ʒ	dʒ	j
usual	judge	you
θ	ð	s
think	that	see

IPA	Stress
ˈ	Primary stress hotel /həʊˈtel/
ˌ	Secondary stress understand /ˌʌndərˈstænd/

IPA	Syllabification
.	nitrate /ˈnaɪ.treɪt/, night-rate /ˈnaɪt.reɪt/

The letter R, lowercase r (pronounced /ɑːr/) represents IPA phoneme /r/. For examples see IPA phoneme /r/.

R normally modifies the sound of the vowel letters preceding it in comparison to the sound that those letters have before other consonants.

For single vowels there are three sounds:

• Long monophthong as /ɑː/ in start, sari, starry, starred, starring
• Rhotic diphthong as /eə/ in square, scary
• Short or normal sound, which is present before any consonant, as /æ/ in trap, carry, arid

For intervocalic "r" there are two spelling patterns for three sounds. As an example we put the table for "a". V is any vowel.

	"VrV"	"VrrV"
/ær/	arid	carry
/ɑːr/	sari	starry
/eər/	scary	N/A

Below there is a complete table for all vowels. Cells in yellow indicate that there are very few examples.

Vowel letters	Normal sound	Normal sound examples	Normal sound examples		Rhotic sound	Rhotic sound examples
			"rr"	"r"		"r"	"rr"
a	/æ/	hat	carry	charity	/ɑː/	start, sari	starry
			AmE also with /e/
a, ai	/eɪ/	face, wait	N/A	payroll	/eə/	square, scary, hair, hairy	N/A
e, ea	/e/	dress, head	ferry	very	/ɜː/	verb, learn	preferred
ea	/eɪ/(*)	break	N/A	N/A	/eə/(*)	bear	N/A
e, ea, ee	/iː/	theme, deal, fleece	N/A	rewrite	/ɪə/	mere, near, deer	N/A
i, y	/ɪ/	kit, myth	mirror	spirit, lyrics	/ɜː/	girl	stirred, myrrh
i, y	/aɪ/	nice, type	N/A	virus	/aɪə/	fire, tyreBrE	N/A
o	/ɒ/BrE /ɑː/AmE	lot	sorry	N/A	/ɔː/	north	abhorred
	/ɒ/BrE /ɔː/AmE	cloth	torrid	foreign
o, oa, ou	/əʊ/, [oʊ]AmE	joke, goat, soul	N/A	showroom	FORCE vowel: [ɔː, o,AmE oəAmE]	force, more, glory, board, course	N/A
o	/ʌ/(*)	love	worry	thorough	/ɜː/(*)	word
			AmE with /ɜː/
u	/ʌ/	strut	hurry AmE with /ɜː/		/ɜː/	nurse	furry
u	/juː, uː/	cute, student	N/A	Blu-ray	/jʊə, ʊə/, [jɔː, ɔː]BrE	cure, sure, tourist	N/A
oo	/uː/	goose	N/A		/ʊə/, [ɔː]BrE	poor	N/A
ou, ow	/aʊ/	mouth, down	N/A	dowry	/aʊə/	sour	N/A

(*) Exceptional sound for this spelling

Examples of intervocalic R

In the table below we show many examples of intervocalic R and the corresponding rhotic vowel sounds when the spelling uses one vowel letter.

Vowel letters	Short monophthong	Short monophthong examples		Long monoph­thong	Long monophthong examples		Diphthong	Diphthong examples
		"rr"	"r"		"r"	"rr"		"r"
a	/æ/	barrier, carry, embarrass, marriage, marry, narrative, narrow	character, characteristic, characterize, charity, comparison, guarantee, parallel, paragraph, salary	/ɑː/	safari, sari, scenarioBrE	barring, jarring, scarring, sparring, starring, starry	/eə/	caring, hilarious, Mary, parent, rarely, Sarah, scenario,AmE scaring, staring, variable, variation, variety, various, vary
e	/e/	berry, cherry, deterrent,BrE errand, error, ferret, ferry, herring, interrogate, merry, sherry, terrible, terror, terrorist, territory	American, austerity, ceremony, cherish, clerical, derelict, derivation, dexterity, experiment, herald, heresy, heritage, heroism, heron, hysterical, imperative, inherit, merit, numeric, peril, perilous, perish, posterity, prosperity, severity, sheriff, sincerity, spherical, stereo, sterile, therapy, verify, verification, very	/ɜː/		deferring, deterrent,AmE deterring, inferring, preferring, referral, referring, transferring	/ɪə/	criteria, criterion, experience, hero, material, period, series, serious
i	/ɪ/	irrational, irrefutable, irregular, irrelevant, irreparable, irresistible, irrigation, irritation, mirror	conspiracy, delirious, miracle, mirage, satiric, spirit	/ɜː/		stirring, whirring	/aɪ/	irate, Irish, ironic, irony, pirate, siren, spiral, virus
							/aɪə/	admirer, desirable, firearm
o	/ɒ/BrE /ɑː/AmE	borrow, sorrow, sorry, tomorrow	N/A	/ɔː/	boring, chlorine, choral, explorer, exploring, glory, ignoring, historian, memorial, moreover, notorious, restoring, scoring, storage, storing, story	abhorring	[oə]	Now merged with /ɔː/
	/ɒ/BrE /ɔː/AmE	abhorrent, correlation, correspond, corridor, horrible, horror, porridge, torrent, torrid	foreign, forest, historical, majority, moral, orange, origin, priority
u	/ʌ/	concurrence, concurrent, currant, current, currency, curry, flurry, hurricane, hurry, recurrence, surrogate		/ɜː/		blurring, blurry, concurring, furry, purring, occurring	/ʊə	curable, curious, jury, lurid, mural, neural, plural, puritan, rural, spurious
							/ʊ/	Burundi, guru, Jurassic, uranium
y	/ɪ/	Thyrrhenian	lyrics, pyramid, syringe, tyranny	/ɜː/			/aɪ/	gyrate, thyroid, tyrant
							/aɪə/

R in combinations

• "rh" sounds like "r"

rhinoceros - rhyme - rhythm

• "wr" sounds like "r"

wrap - wrapper - wrist - write - wrong

See also

• Rhotic and non-rhotic accent
• Decoding exercises: "ar"
• Decoding exercises: "arr"
• Decoding exercises: "arV" and "arrV"
• Decoding exercises: "er"
• Decoding exercises: "err"
• Decoding exercises: "erV" and "errV"
• Decoding exercises: "ir"
• Decoding exercises: "irr"
• Decoding exercises: "irV", "yrV", "irrV" and "yrrV"
• Decoding exercises: "or"
• Decoding exercises: "orr"
• Decoding exercises: "orV" and "orrV"
• Pronunciation exercises: /ɒrV/ vs /ɔːrV/
• Decoding exercises: "ur"
• Decoding exercises: "urr"
• Decoding exercises: "urV" and "urrV"