19

Why is "Enrique", even though its 'r' position is at the middle of a word, pronounced as a double "r"? What are the orthographic rules you need to know to determine if an "r" must be pronounced as a double "r" or just an "r"?

hippietrail
  • 5,264
  • 3
  • 34
  • 61
Alfredo Osorio
  • 10,650
  • 34
  • 76
  • 119

5 Answers5

10

The "strong R" (as in Rat) is spelled as just one r when in the middle of a word follows an L, M, N or S. As it's said in the comments, maybe M should not be considered because I can't think on any word with "mr".

Examples:

Alrededor, Conrado, desratizar...

la letra R

Diego Mijelshon
  • 2,945
  • 23
  • 25
Laura
  • 3,305
  • 17
  • 17
  • The link only mentions l, n, and s. Are you sure about m? – jrdioko Nov 28 '11 at 17:43
  • 1
    I answered with what I remembered from school and just looked for the examples, now that you say I can't think on any word that has "mr"... I'll comment if I found one. – Laura Nov 28 '11 at 17:50
  • 2
    @jrdioko found it! but you were kind of right as it's an onomatopoeia and an archaism (I think)http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=rumrum – Laura Nov 28 '11 at 17:56
  • You mentioned "rat", do you mean the english letter? Speaking about "R", maybe English is not the best example... :D – Alenanno Nov 28 '11 at 18:52
  • @Alenanno yes, I meant the sound – Laura Nov 28 '11 at 21:43
  • Also when followed by l, m, n, and s the ere becomes erre. – Brian Nov 28 '11 at 23:16
  • @Brian can you add a source? – Laura Nov 29 '11 at 07:34
  • @LauraMoyàAlcover I changed your S example because Israel, being a Hebrew word, is usually pronounced with a soft R by jews (native Spanish speakers, that is) – Diego Mijelshon Nov 29 '11 at 21:37
  • About a word with a "m" and "r" the one that comes to my mind is "Armando". – Alfredo Osorio Nov 30 '11 at 15:55
  • @DiegoMijelshon: it's still not part of the spanish language, it's a foreign pronunciation, but Israel is correctly pronounced with a rolled R in Spanish. – Petruza Jan 10 '12 at 02:46
  • I can't think of a spanish word with mr either, but when pronouncing brands, made-up names, acronyms, etc., you always roll the r after an m. – Petruza Jan 10 '12 at 02:48
  • @Petruza It's debatable, but it just wasn't the best example; that's why I changed it. – Diego Mijelshon Jan 11 '12 at 18:47
  • @DiegoMijelshon: Ok, let's debate :D I'm not familiar with SE's chat, but that's the place for this, I think. – Petruza Jan 11 '12 at 18:52
  • @Petruza foreign names are not pronounced by applying Spanish phonetic rules. Otherwise, we'd pronounce "Michael Jackson" Mee-cha-EL HAC-son. – Diego Mijelshon Jan 14 '12 at 01:09
  • @Diego: I agree with you, I think proper names should be pronounced as they are in their original languages, but as we are talking about the Spanish language, it has clear rules, and one of them is that r after s becomes hard as rr. (check this post's link to the RAE article, it gives the specific example of israelí) – Petruza Jan 14 '12 at 02:11
  • @Petruza what if there is no way to represent the original sound according to Spanish rules (as is the case with Israel)? Another example: Shanghai. The RAE is great, but they make a lot of mistakes when they try to impose a particular academic view over accepted usage (like they did with "Yidis", which has been always written as Idish) – Diego Mijelshon Jan 14 '12 at 12:37
  • @DiegoMijelshon: that happens a lot with many other countries. the q in Iraq is a sound totally strange to Spanish, yet you spell it Irak and pronounce it with an approximate pronunciation in Spanish. I agree with your example of Idish, but with Israel it's not only a rule of the RAE that nobody follows, but it's also the widely used pronunciation. The fact that Jewish people (not all of them) pronounce Israel with a soft r is not only about Spanish phonology but also has to do with a sense of belonging to a peoples* and culture, and I totally respect that. (* pueblo) – Petruza Jan 14 '12 at 13:06
  • @Petruza it's true that a majority of the people incorrectly pronounce Israel with a strong R, and that the RAE supports that view. You are also correct in that jews pronounce it in it's original form for sociological reasons more than linguistical ones. I still believe that all proper names should be pronounced as close as possible to the originals. – Diego Mijelshon Jan 14 '12 at 17:16
  • @DiegoMijelshon: Ok, if you state that the majority of the spanish speaking population and the RAE agree on one pronunciation and that 's the wrong pronunciation in the spanish language, then we have nothing else to discuss. I'll finish saying that I agree with you in that foreign proper names, specially countries' names should be pronounced as close as their original pronunciation. – Petruza Jan 14 '12 at 18:04
  • @Laura *Nemrod* (the Biblical character) as a loanword from Latin (< Ancient Greek) < Hebrew has the mr sequence. – jacobo Dec 28 '17 at 23:43
2

Another way to understand this is based on what sounds exist in Spanish. From Wikipedia:

The alveolar trill [r] and the alveolar tap [ɾ] are in phonemic contrast word-internally between vowels (as in carro 'car' vs caro 'expensive'), but are otherwise in complementary distribution. Only the trill can occur after /l/, after /n/, and after /s/ (e.g. alrededor, enriquecer, Israel), and word-initially (e.g. rey 'king'). After a plosive or fricative consonant, only the tap can occur (e.g. tres 'three', frío 'cold').

krubo
  • 781
  • 5
  • 8
1

I didn't know why this happened, but there's an explanation on elcastellano.org which boils down to this: common names or surnames follow the same rules as every spanish word, but "single r" is pronounced like a "strong r" (like "ratón") when following "l", "n" or "s".

This is obvious when forming words from other that start with "strong r": "enrejar" (from "reja"), "enredar" (from "red"), etc. But also in names like Enrique or Israel, or adverbs like "alrededor".

rsuarez
  • 452
  • 2
  • 7
  • 7
    Do you mind adding a quick explanation here too? This is useful in case the original page is modified or even deleted, otherwise your answer becomes useless... :) +1 by the way, since you answer the question. – Alenanno Nov 28 '11 at 15:21
  • Done. Hope I haven't make it worse with my explanation O:-) – rsuarez Dec 02 '11 at 16:05
1

One simple rule: R is soft when is surrounded by two vowels or placed before a vowel while preceded by a consonant other than l, n or s. R is strong otherwise.

pferor
  • 1,374
  • 9
  • 12
  • By surrounded you mean by two vowels or at least by one vowel? because for example: in carne and honra the r is surrounded by exactly one vowel and one consonant, and in the first case it's a soft r and in the second case it's hard. – Petruza Jan 10 '12 at 02:57
  • @Petruza Your examples are right. I was trying to provide an easy "rule". Edited. – pferor Jan 10 '12 at 12:04
0

Pronunciation of r and rr in Spanish:

The Spanish r is harder and more abrupt than the English r. It is similar to the rd sound in 'card'. Additionally, r is trilled at the beginning of a word and following l, n and s. The rr is always trilled.

Note that the hardness of the r sound often depends on region. I've seen some Spanish texts from parts of South America say the r sounds exactly like an English d--this is not true in many places.

Flimzy
  • 12,896
  • 36
  • 95
  • 166
  • About the resemblance with english d, it's actually double d, as in Eddy and it's the one english sound that sounds similar to the spanish r – Petruza Jan 10 '12 at 03:00
  • How does the d in Eddy sound any different than a single d? Or maybe I don't understand what you're saying. – Flimzy Jan 10 '12 at 06:27
  • Yes, that's right, the dd in Eddy sounds totally different than the single english d, and Eddy is in fact the example given in english when trying to explain the spanish r. It doesn't sound logical, but hey, english is not logical. – Petruza Jan 10 '12 at 19:37
  • I've never heard the dd in Eddy pronounced any differently than a single d in English. And my father's name is Eddy, so I would probably know if it was pronounced differently (at least in American English). Do you have a source for this information, as it's completely new to me. – Flimzy Jan 10 '12 at 21:21
  • Nope, no sources, just what I told you – Petruza Jan 10 '12 at 22:00
  • Well, in my experience, what you have told me is completely incorrect. :) Where have you heard the dd pronounced differently? And how is it pronounced? – Flimzy Jan 10 '12 at 23:12
  • @Flimzy The sound is called an alveolar flap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar-flapping and is used for double t and double d especially in American and Australian English. The degree of flapping depends on the speaker and how clearly you articulate, but if you pronounce "latter" and "ladder" the same, there's a good chance you are pronouncing the tt or dd as an alveolar flap, which is also the sound used for soft r in Spanish. – dainichi Jun 04 '12 at 07:15
  • @Flimzy As for Petruza's distinction between single and double d, I don't think it's completely precise, but there is a point that dd usually occurs intervocacalically, whereas d doesn't necessarily. – dainichi Jun 04 '12 at 07:22
  • @dainichi: I pronounce "latter" and "ladder" quite differently. Same with "Ettie" (my grandmother's name) and "Eddy" (my father's name). "Edy" vs. "Eddy" however, differs only in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds (long E vs. short E). This is based only on my experience. – Flimzy Jun 04 '12 at 15:13