spelling the rolling "r" in foreign accents

R-r-ruffles? But you could only get away with it maybe once or twice, any more would be obnoxious. Just say the dude pronounces R's like a lawnmower if it's that important to the story and be done with it. Writing in dialect usually just pisses your readers off.

Trying to spell dialects and accents phonetically drives readers nuts. You might as well encrypt it.

Do it with his word choices and sentence structure instead.

Don't do it.

Just don't.

The Spanish rolled r is a written double r - perro, ferrocarril, etc. I have no idea about Arabic.

I had this issue too quite a while ago and the consensus here was - don't try to imitate it in written text. Instead say something like - he trilled his r's. Puma

Another trilled letter: My favorite number to say in German is d-d-drei tousand, d-d-drei hoondert, d-d-drei und d-d-dreisig. The spit fairly flies!

Why not have the character, that he's talking to, think how he liked, disliked the rolling rs. I like it myself and can can roll my rs as good as any French native speaker.

Phaedo said:

The rolling "r" in Spanish or Arabic etc. How do you actually spell/show it on paper?

"How arh you?"
"How arr you?"

And what can I do for "your"?

I want the guy's accent easily recognisable, but I fear the word(s) might become incoherent.

Thanks!

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Here's how that r is spelled: r
Just write the words normally and mention that he has an accent. But please, for the love of god, don't get all phonetic in your spelling.

Samantha's_Song said:

Why not have the character, that he's talking to, think how he liked, disliked the rolling rs. I like it myself and can can roll my rs as good as any French native speaker.

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French people don't roll their r's. The French r is a slightly guttural sound spoken in the back of the throat, not rolled at all (rolls are done with the tip of the tongue against the teeth). Spaniards, Italians and Russians all roll their r's, but not the French.

I've never heard a French speaker roll their r like we do in Spanish. The phoneme sounds more swallowed to me, but then, I don't speak French...

I agree with the above, that your character should think or speak once about the sound of the double-r, then drop it--your readers will get it.

Whatever. I can do it the way the French do, so I'm fine with that myself.

ideagirl said:

French people don't roll their r's. The French r is a slightly guttural sound spoken in the back of the throat, not rolled at all (rolls are done with the tip of the tongue against the teeth). Spaniards, Italians and Russians all roll their r's, but not the French.

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It's called a uvular r. The French one.

Aha! Thanks for the correct term. I always thought of it as swallowed--your term izz morre ellagannnt, yannnno...