Rolling your r's I love listening to the German language, but it often bothered me that I was unable to completely speak it properly. I am referring to the European trait of a hard "r", occasionally accompanied by a rolled "r". American English has a softer "r", and thus learning to roll one's "r" is not an innate part of the language commonly spoken or taught. Several years ago (May 2007), I decided to try to do something about this. Disappointed from online research into this (I found no substantive assistance, just fragments of ideas that essentially went nowhere), I attempted to devise my own approach. I settled on a series of exercises designed, as I determined, to "train" my tongue to be capable of performing this linguistic accessory. The exercises consisted of rapidly repeating the fragments "teh" and "deh" (the "t" falls closer to the back of the teeth, the "d" a little higher on the palette). I would alternate between the two and repeat them rapidly, along with occasionally attempting to roll my "r" to see if I had made any progress (such as in saying a word like "car" or "start" and trying to hold the "r" longer). After about a week (I believe) of practice, one day I started in the morning and by the afternoon I could successfully roll my "r". At the time, the duration of the rolled "r" was short, but I figured that, in time, I would find a way to extend it. I tried to work on it, but it didn't seem to progress anywhere. However, after some time of forgetting and not worrying about it, I tried rolling my "r" and found that I could extend it to the end of my breath, which was my second initial goal. The point there is that sometimes you can try too hard - I probably had to relax for the rest of it to come naturally. I am still elated that I was able to teach myself how to do that. It's a tiny thing, I know, but I find it both a unique and to me essential accessory to learning European or even Asian languages. It is not required to speak the languages, naturally, but the difference, at least for me, of such a thing between American English and Eurasian languages makes those languages more exotic and more alluring. Variety is the spice of life - this is one of the primary reasons to learn a foreign language.