Importance of rolling 'r's in Finnish?

Question

I'm fifteen and interested in learning to speak Finnish and recently bought a book/CD pack to try and self teach (Teach Yourself Finnish by Terttu Leney, is it a good one to start with?)

I'm reading the first chapter however and it said that when speaking Finnish you're supposed to roll your Rs. I speak with a Scottish accent (from Fife) and have a very small speech impediment when it comes to Rs (sometimes pronounced them as Ws) so it's extremely hard for me to do this. I've looked online for tutorials on how to do it but I just can't seem to master it. Can I still learn and speak Finnish properly without being able to do this or is it too important?

Answer 1

I'm not a native Finnish speaker, so don't take my word 100%, but...



Just as fellow native English speakers understand you even though you have a speech impediment, a native Finn speaker would be able to generally understand you even if you are not able to roll your Rs.



In Russian, for example, being unable to roll your Rs is considered a speech impediment (I had a friend who had this problem), but it doesn't affect understandability nearly at all when a person doesn't roll the R. Just it doesn't "sound" perfectly right.



The Terttu Leney book is pretty good in my opinion. I only ever got half-way through it, but I managed to get by well enough the many times I was in Finland with what I had learned from the book and cassettes.

Answer 2

Your understanding of the language should not be influenced by your pronunciation.



Other people, especially strangers, may have some trouble understanding your words, but you shouldn't give up on learning Finnish because of this. It's a beautiful language.



Your school should have someone trained to work with students with speech impediments. Talk to them, they may be able to help you.

Answer 3

Well, it is indeed important to learn the R because it can sometimes differentiate words from each other. An example: Väri (colour) vs. väli (space). Please note that the Finnish R is NOT the one that is in standard British English, it is more similar to what David Coulthard has (the former F1 driver). Though, you will do fine as long as your R is not too similar to L.

Answer 4

I've identified approximately Ruoska for such decades. they're a tribute band to the German Indisturial band Rammstein.(Check them out in case you like Ruoska) When i noticed the name of this question i knew instantly that you just had been speaking approximately Ruoska lol. Good stuff regardless that.