Decoding the letter R
From Teflpedia
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right /raɪt/ |
The letter R, lower case 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[edit]
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[edit]
- "rh" sounds like "r"
- rhinoceros - rhyme - rhythm
- "wr" sounds like "r"
- wrap - wrapper - wrist - write - wrong
See also[edit]
- 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"
