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Comment by RiderOfGiraffes | Hacker News Reader

He says that there are two forms of "R", one as in "red" and the other as in "car". I've been sitting here reciting these to myself over and over, and I can't hear a difference. Neither can my wife, who has a degree in linguistics and speaks English and French fluently.

Can someone explain the difference?

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Just guessing, but in non-rhotic accents like RP and New Zealand English, the R in car is not pronounced unless the following word begins with a vowel. Any other ideas, maybe from an American English speaker?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents

For most American dialects, the sounds are nearly identical, but not quite: at the beginning of a syllable, the "r" is an approximant (a type of consonant that starts with an emphasized vowel sound), rather like "y" or "w", whereas at the end it is a true vowel, again like "ee" or "oo" respectively.

I'm a native en-gb speaker: I'd say the R in red is hard (ruh! like huh!) and the one in car is soft (aspirated; "ar") but I don't know IPA so couldn't really give you any more than this.

Reh-ed and ca-arrrr//the first is a soft sound, the second says itself.

With my New Zealand accent, no matter how hard I try I can't make the "R" in red and car the same! Car for me is pronounced something like "Kah".

In New Zealand English, you should be comparing the pronunciation of R in “red” and “car audio”, to ensure that the R is actually pronounced at all. Some accents don’t even pronounce it in the latter. (There’s a good one for the spelling reformers.)

And be careful with “ah”. I have a strong suspicion that we pronounce it very differently in New Zealand compared to North America.

With my Australian accent I wouldn't pronounce an "r" sound in "car audio" either -- just switch straight from the "ahhh" sound of "car" to the "orrrr" sound of "audio".

Speaking of which, it wasn't until quite recently that I realised not all accents have so much trouble with the ambiguity of the Ford Ka.

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