imdat!

The letter 'r' seems to sound different within a word to how it does when it is at the end of a word :-S I noticed this a while ago but have just listened again to this pronounciation guide......

Am I right that when 'r' is the last letter a word it is pronouced almost as 'rsh' in English or 'orş' in Turkish?

For example - the Turkish word "bir" seems to pronounced "beech"

evet bod bu dogru

But I thought Turkish was supposed to be totally mono-phonetic!

Greetings Bod,
R being at the end of a word or somewhere else doesn't matter. What counts is the syllables (heceler). We pronounce according syllables.

Example 1:
Ankara > an ka ra
It has the syllables 'an', 'ka' and 'ra'. This means, no matter in what word you see the syllables 'an' 'ka' or 'ra' they should be pronounced the same. For instance 'para' has the syllables 'pa' and 'ra', so this 'ra' is exactly the same 'ra' as in Ankara.

Example 2:
Sarı > sa rı
darı > da rı

The 'rı' will be the same 'rı' in both words.


Example 3:
Gelirim > ge li rim
deri > de ri
Here you see two different syllables with r. The first one has 'rim' and the other one has 'ri'. I agree that the r in both sound different. Well that's again because the syllables. ri ends with a vowel and this will make the r sound sharper and more defined. rim ends with a consonant and because of this m at the end you can't make the r sound too defined. One syllables is one sound.

If you can find two identical syllables that (like the two 'ra's or 'rı's) that are written the same and have different sounds then it would be interesting. Of course there will be some Arabic originated words with different a, i and e 's like hala and hâlâ.

The word 'bir' is not a good example to talk about. 'Bir' the most famous word that isn't pronounced as it is. We normally say 'bi'. Except 'bir' the second most famous word is 'istanbul' which is pronounced as 'ıstanbul' (with ı ).

No, I don't think so.
It may just sound like that to you, but r is always r and always read the same. Maybe because the "r" is at the end, while speaking it's difficult to roll it and therefor it doesn't sound as strong as the other rs.

Well, yeah. It is unclear. Maybe I just like how old people pronounce the word.

But please look at this dialogue and particularly at lines 1 and 7.

The end of line one seems to have a definate (English) 's' on the end of it. "tren varsh" almost. And line 7 seems to be "nay kadarsh" in an English way of describing the sound.

Strangely it only words at the end of a sentence and end in 'r' that seem to be affected this way :-S

Yes, I too have realised that ss sound at the end of 1st and 7th line. The man you hear is a famous Turkish actor and he thinks he looks more sexy when talking languidly. So, nothing special here. Just pronounce 'var' and 'ne kadar' as you would do with any other r.

There is a problem with the letter "r" in the english language as well. Often on radio and television you will hear people adding an "r" to the end of certain words.