Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly | Hacker News Reader

Hack your anatomy: How To Whistle Loudly

natwilson.com

49 pointseru33 comments

Wish he could include some diagrams or pics!

I learned the hands free approach as a kid (no assistance, just experimentation). Now I can reach ear piercing levels that temporarily damage the hearing of those within 5-10 feet using either a 3-5 second burst or 10-15 second sustained whistle. I've found it makes for a very effective training mechanism with dogs.

Now, if someone could teach me how to roll my Spanish R's - I've heard that if you don't learn by age 3 you can't but I want to disagree.

I've heard that if you don't learn by age 3 you can't

Nonsense. I learned to do it long after I was 3.

This might help: put your tongue (but not the tip) just above your teeth, let it relax, then blow air out so your tongue flutters.

I've heard someone explain to me that it's kind of like a flag fluttering in the wind. Except that your tongue is the flag. He recommended that I try to stick the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth and blow out hard - and resist the outward pressure (and the tongue will flutter back rapidly like a flag - the Spanish R vibration) - and once I got that, with time, the amount of pressure needed would relax.

That sounds about right. Only don't take this too literally:

stick the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth

If I do that, it gets stuck. What I think you want is the hard palate (behind the teeth), not the top of the mouth, and keep it relaxed.

I guess I should add that I'm neither a native speaker (though I've studied more than one language with rolled r's) nor have I any experience teaching this skill. I'd bet money you can learn it, though.

Edit: one more thing - you may find it easier to try words that end in a rolled r. The words that begin with a rolled r are a little harder (to me).

Except there are no words in Spanish that end with a rolled r.

Not quite true. If a word ends in an r and the speaker is thinking about what to say next, he may in fact roll the r. Think about this sentence: "Estuvimos allí por... un rato." Often it'd be punctuated with ellipses, but in some sense it might be better written "Estuvimos allí porr un rato."

I've heard quite my share of Spanish and never happened upon that. Rather, people would extend the r without rolling it.

And in any event, that wouldn't mean there are words in Spanish with rolled final r's, which is what was being discussed, just that people might pronounce a word that way.

Argentinian here... and I'd usually extend the o, not the r, so "Estuvimos allí poor un rato."

Also, a lot of native spanish speakers pronounce all initial r's as rolled r's.

That's the way spanish is pronounced.

Radio is "Rradio".

I've found amusing how some people who learn english as a second language end up pronouncing spanish as "espanish", since no spanish word begis with s(consonant), except for sh.

"A lot" meaning all of them, because that's the norm.

nonsense.

Cite one?

You flutter your tongue? I've always used the soft part of my mouth, in the back. Maybe I'm making a different sound though.

Most people who have a hard time rolling their Rs are trying too hard; and it makes their tongue too stiff. Try relaxing your tongue (in other words, make it loose and lazy) and then try to roll your Rs.

I took Spanish all through High School and never managed to get the roll down. Then in my early thirties I was challenged by a friend and in about a week it finally clicked. The problem is, I find it very hard to keep up without practice and it is never flows out naturally.

Really? I speak Spanish so I have the inverse problem; my English pronunciation is funny.

But you can spell "pronunciation", which many english speakers have difficulty doing :)

Thank you :) My spelling is ok (more or less), but my pronunciation is terrible.

Maybe I could do it when I was three, but I definitely learned when I was in my teens.

I learned it accidentally when I was 21. I was making fun of a children cartoon commercial, by repeating it in an Italian mafia boss voice. Lo and behold, the Spanish r came out of nowhere.

I was taught Spanish in second grade (Sacramento district public school system) and can roll the R's just fine - I believe I was 6 or 7 at the time.

I had a friend try to teach me how to do it, and it still didn't work. I examined how he positioned his tongue, lips, and everything. I tried to do the same thing and nothing worked.

I then spent a matter of weeks experimenting with different mouth arrangements and almost making myself faint with the amount of blowing. Sometimes I could almost feel the whistle beginning, but it never quite got there. In the end I finally found the right configuration and I have now mastered this hack. I like to use it to imitate the squeaking noises that basketball players make on a court.

Other hacks I've mastered:

Talking like Donald Duck

Beat boxing

Raising my right eyebrow (for the life of me I cannot do it with my left)

Hah. I can raise my left, but not my right. Are you a leftie? (I'm not, so I'm wondering if that extends somehow to your... eyebrow-raising-skill).

I'm right handed and can raise only left eyebrow.

Same here, almost. I'm right-handed and I can raise my right eyebrow but it's not as easy as the left.

I am ambidextrous and I can lift my nose.

I'm righty and can only raise my right one. But I can also jiggle my left ear...

Wow. I read the second method, tried it, and it just worked. I don't know how that explanation helped me, but something just clicked. Now I can whistle! (Though not loudly yet...)

As with everything the trick is to practice and practice and practice. (Whistling is easier than unicycling, though.)

I don't know how many words that is, but it's all worth substantially less than 1 good picture would be.

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