do you have to have the ability to 'purr' your tongue, like roll the letter r. do you understand what I am saying lol?

Yes I understand what you mean - you mean roll you 'r's (!!)

I think this is how you should pronounce any 'r' in Turkish words Lauz.

yes i cant roll my r`s therefore im up the creak without a paddle ama kim dikkat eder this wont stop me trying to speak the language, but when i talk to my turkish friends in exeter this is where they have trouble understanding me ,when the words contain R which is possibly half of the turkish language

I'm lucky, in dutch we use about 3 different kinds of the R, depends on your region. So we also have the Rolling R

My problem is of a totally opposite nature - we Polish use a very hard /r/ so trying to soften it the Turkish way is killing me and, at the same time, providing lots of fun for my Turkish friends who have the doubtful pleasure of listening to my clumsy attempts

We have 2 r's, the rolling one and the French one. I speak with the French one, but I think it sounds completely wrong when practising Turkish.
Fortunately, I learnt using the rolling R when I was studying Spanish. Spanish with a French R sounds a bit weird too, so back then I practised a lot when there was nobody around. I must have looked and sounded completely ridiculous but practice makes perfect, değil mi?

Mind you, there is a difference between the Turkish and Spanish rolling R, the latter is much harder. So I can imagine there are a lot of variations (the Polish rolling R for example ), and it takes practice to get it right.

atleast you lot can do some kind of rolling 'r' lol. I cant even roll my tongue yet.. I keep trying though hehe

Well,. we have a rolling r, a throat r and an english-like r.. it depends on which kinda dutch you speak.. I speak the 'dictionary dutch' (the common accepted perfect dutch), but my region is a bit 'poshy' so i used lots of english-r.

For example my name.. Esther.. in english this is pronounced much like.. Este/Esta but the way i say it has an R like 'reading'!! Kadir says it with the turkish R, which i really do like.

I think us dutch are lucky, we can twist our tongues usually in many ways to sound quite fine. it's just a pity not many dutch found out that they actually can

To let you all know... if you are having problems with rolling your r's, then it may be "genetically" difficult for you to do so. Some people cannot roll their tongues at all. Believe it or not, it is a genetic trait from your parents for you to roll your tongue. It is possible that some difficulties may be caused by this. But with a lot of practice, you may be able to overcome the problem of the rolling r's. As it is, I am having problems getting past the French r's to get the Turkish r's, so I am in the same boat as others So I know how you feel. I just thought this little bit of trivia may be interesting for the rolling "r" difficulties.
iyi günler
L.F.