To start making the Spanish R hold the tongue close to the roof of the mouth while the tongue is vibrating and try to blow the vibration forwards to the alveolar ridge, which is the space between your teeth and the top wall of your mouth. At the same time, you need to be very gently pushing your tongue upwards towards the alveolar ridge but not too hard to block the airflow since the front part of the tongue needs to relax to be able to vibrate.

If you find hard to work on your tongue is because in some languages, for instance English, speakers never use the tongue partially tensed while the front of it is relaxed. The tongue is a muscle and this lack of exercise is what makes it hard to pronounce it.
​
Therefore, to be able to perform the Spanish R the tongue of some learners needs to workout first. To do so, you can do the following exercise used often by speech therapists.

Follow the below instructions to do the exercise:

1.- Get a piece of soft white breadcrumb and put it in your mouth.
2.- With the front of your mouth and your tongue bring the breadcrumb to the alveolar ridge and sculpt it to make a ball. 
3.- Move the piece of bread towards the alveolar ridge energetically in order to work out the muscles of your tongue.
4.- Keep sculpting the ball for a few minutes or until you make a hard ball with the bread and then trow it away.
 
After doing this exercise your tongue will be warmed up so take advantage of it and try to pronounce the following Spanish words as many times as you can:

Perro
Carro
Ramón
Rosa
Carta
Correr
Reír
Rana
Sierra
Rata
Tarro
​Romper

I hope you enjoy the exercise.

To learn a new language may be a long route but you can have fun during the process too. There are many things you can do to learn Spanish while enjoying yourself. 

First of all, to join a Spanish conversation group is a good idea since it helps you to develop your communication skills while having a good time with other people who might be in the same situation as you. Once you are there, relax and free your mind to speak with others without being worried about the mistakes that you may make. The best thing about this kind of activities is not only to have the chance of practising the language that you are learning but also to build self-confidence to overcome the fear and embarrassment that often arise when speaking a new language. ​

At this time of the year you probably can’t wait to see what the new year brings you, I hope you got the strength you need to pursuit your dreams in the new year that is just around the corner. Perhaps, one of your top five dreams is to learn Spanish, if so, remember that in the previous article we talked about how important it is to establish the reasons why you may want to learn a foreign language since it determines how you need to approach that language. In this article we are going to have a look at one of these major reasons: learning Spanish for specific purposes. ​