Omitting the difficult /r/ sound – when?

Haven’t you ever had a feeling that pronounced by you the /r/ sound in English sounds strange & stiltedly? What if I told you sometimes a word with the /r/ sound unpronounced at all sounds even more British than all the attempts to make the word realisation with /r/? Today, we’ll take a look at some vocabulary containing -ar- and let up on you.

Take a look at the following words and their phonetic transcription:

darling /ˈdɑːlɪŋ/
harm /hɑːm/
margin /ˈmɑːdʒɪn/

As you can notice, after /a/, instead of /r/ in the phonetic transcription, there is /ː/ – this means that the vowel /a/ is pronounced long, at its double length so it replaces the /r/ sound. However, this situation only happens if -ar- is followed with a consonant. If a vowel appears after -ar-, the /r/ sound has to be pronounced – look below!

maroon /məˈruːn/
parental /pəˈrentəl/

Hope you’ve enjoyed!

Vocabulary:
omit – pomijać
pronounce – wymawiać
stiltedly – nienaturalnie
unpronounced – niewymówiony
attempt – próba
contain – zawierać
let up on somebody – ułatwić komuś życie
harm – krzywda
margin – margines
instead of – zamiast
vowel – samogłoska
length – długość
replace – zastępować
consonant – spółgłoska
maroon – bordowy
parental – rodzicielski