Tara,
Great idea on using this thread as an exchange of advice and help on our languages.
There is a lot an English speaker can learn - in my opinion - from listening to, let's say, a Spaniard's or Mexican's different accents in English. I've found these provide windows to how I should speak Spanish. For example, a friend from Mexico City says the English "yes" as "'j'yes." If I were to want to pick this accent up I'd put that sublte soft 'j' with words starting with "y."
I have friends with the attitude I should speak the Spanish version, and most who want me to Sound Latin American. A friend once said to me that is one of the great aspects to becoming bilingual (for her, trilingual: Japenese, American English, and España Spanish) is you can decide how you want to speak and sound. The "wild-west"
Mexican drawl, the sing-y Colombianisms, the strong Argentine "ll" ("czha"), or whatever!!!
But I degress ... any help you all want to provide me on ways to "visualize" and generate the "rr" sound ... someone care to articulate how the tounge is placed in the (heh heh - this is ripe for a misinterpretation - heh heh)
mouth ...
This should get interesting. Any Spaniards want to discuss their difficulties with English phonetics ???
[ 01-21-2002: Message edited by: JJP ]