A while back, I posted a video about how to roll your R’s.
Today, it’s the most viewed video on my channel by far — thanks, I suspect, to a quick tip shared in the intro.
The video starts something like this:
“You CAN learn to roll your R’s, it’ll probably just take a lot longer than you expected. Expect it to take 3-6 months. That way, if it happens sooner, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. But if not, you won’t get frustrated and give up.”
(Btw, the same tip applies to grammar. Expect new concepts to take many months to sink in and become automatic).
Unfortunately, no one tells learners this.
So when the lightbulb moment doesn’t happen, frustration ensues. People give up. They assume they’ll never get the hang of it.
The truth is, things rarely click instantly when learning a new language — especially new sounds.
How new speech habits form
3-4 times a day, I play fetch with my dog in my yard.
In her 4 years of life so far, that’s over 4,000 rounds of fetch, mostly running the same path in the grass.
All that running back and forth has matted the grass down and created a little track for her:
And the funniest thing happens when I throw the ball from a different position in the yard: she goes out of her way to run down the track she’s created for herself.
It’s like her muscle memory forces her to follow that path.
Building new pronunciation habits is not dissimilar.
For new speech habits to form, we need patience and repetition. We need to create a well-worn track in our brain so we don’t have to think about things when we’re speaking.
That takes time. If you look at the comments on my R-rolling video, you’ll see that a lot of people did in fact learn how to do it — but it took them weeks or months of practice!
Here is a simple process you can use for any sound you might be trying to improve.
5 steps to automating great pronunciation
- Identify one sound you want to improve. Record yourself pronouncing it now (helpful so you can credit yourself for progress later).
- Learn proper pronunciation of your target sound. Practice aloud many times.
If you’re struggling, separate the sound from the word (“ele” instead of “playa”)
Practice it on its own for the day (“ele ele ele”).
Come back to it the next day and it’ll be easier to reproduce inside words and phrases. Some sounds (like the RR) can take much longer than others to reproduce. - Once you can say it on its own and inside a single word, practice the sound inside a ‘Phrase of the day’.
It’s an idea I’ve written about before, but in a nutshell, it’s a phrase that contains your target sound, and you repeat it to yourself throughout the day.
That way you practice it in the context of a real sentence all day.
At the end of the day, record yourself again and see if you notice a difference - Practice it inside a longer, less controlled context like reading aloud. While reading, your priority is on the one target sound you’re practicing.
- Leave it and come back to it later. Learning anything in Spanish is a process of refining over time, not mastering before moving on.
No eres un loro
I’m not advocating for turning your learning into a mindless game of parroting.
Most of your learning should not involve just repeating things that a Spanish speaker says.
The point is this:
Mastering tricky new sounds — to the point where they come out effortlessly — is very doable, but it takes more time and more reps than most learners realize.
Fortunately, it doesn’t require tons of effort each day.
With some clear instruction, a bit of patience, and a few minutes focused practice a day, you can turn problem sounds into strengths for your spoken Spanish.
Saludos,
Connor
