Why Jonathan Ross Can't Pronounce His Rs

[geekinthegarden]

As a kid I spent years in speech therapy saying that phrase. If ever I come across a ragged rascal he's really at risk of being rendered recumbent with the rugged rock.

[elliott]

Came here to laugh at Jonathan Ross, got diagnosed with a speech impediment.

[goepe]

American "r"s are very different, ours are way further back

[yelir]

Tom Scott saying "Ara Ara" *gives me life*

[varun]

"I wondered as a kid why I couldn't roll my arse"
- Tom Scott

[walaakamy]

This vid made me start doing weird sounds alone in my living room

[shockthetoast]

Wow, this explains a lot. In elementary school I had to go to speech therapy because I couldn't make an R sound. Later in middle school when I started studying Spanish I couldn't figure out why I couldn't roll my R's, and I never have managed to since then... I must have been taught to make my R sound the "wrong" way. (I wonder if that was on purpose because it was easier to overcome my speech impediment that way?)

It also explains some pronunciation issues I had when I tried to learn Japanese.

[vsl]

The sheer diversity of rhotic sounds is incredible. It really always has made me Wonder why the hell anyone would even group them up, since they are so vastly different (take uvular trill and labio dental aproximant) they have nothing in common, but yet they are both r and appear in the same places in related languages.
And now for a weird flex: I can pronounce: [r], [ɾ], [ɹ], [ɻ], [ʁ], [ʀ], [r̝] and a faroese rhotic that I don't know the ipa sign for, which is (I think) all rhotics except for the japanese one :)

[samarvora]

"Stwike him, centuwion, vewy woughly."

[sanaldahatkar]

So when too many people have this defect, the situation somewhat becomes like "Its not a bug, its a feature"?

[dbohnenberger]

I don't use either of those methods to make my "r" sound. I do it in the back of my throat.

[ThePanduh]

Rhotacism is so odd. I spent years of my childhood in speech therapy learning to roll my R's, yet whenever I am around someone with rhotacism, I begin to slip back into it unconsciously. Linguistics are cooool thanks for the information as always.

[morii]

i felt so much less welsh when realising i use the english "r" lmao

[siggi]

This is so interesting. I work as a speech and language therapist, working in my native tongue Swedish, and I've never had a case of someone switching /r/ for anything labial. In Swedish most cases end up either with /l/ or /j/ (both alvoeolar dental in Swedish), if not dissmissing the consonant completely (which is prefectly normal in some dialects). That sheer number of Brits who ends up with a /w/ sound, really shows how different the production of one single sound can be between languages.

[NIDELLANEUM]

Coming back to the original Language File video after yesterday's final one, I'm amazed at how consistent this series was in the way it was shown. The only way you can notice that these videos are 10 years apart is that Tom has aged in the meantime, but all 33 videos have the same style, and the same appeal

[AquaticDot]

My tongue is in the middle of my mouth, not touching either teeths.

[hecticfreeze]

Oh my god I've just learned why I cant roll my Rs after years of trying

[paticusmaximus]

The UK has over 200 regional accents(in an area the size of Missouri and Iowa!).
BBC has an archive of of them online

[cryptofactsu]

Can't believe 10 years went by so quick

Glad for every episode you did!!

Thanks for all the knowledge ☮️✌️

[HoneyballLP]

And as a German you have so many "R" sounds, everyone hates us. xD