Decoding the letter R

The letter R, lowercase r (pronounced /ɑːr/) represents IPA phoneme /r/. For examples see IPA phoneme /r/.

R normally modifies the sound of the vowel letters preceding it in comparison to the sound that those letters have before other consonants.

For single vowels there are three sounds:
 * Long monophthong as /ɑː/ in start, sari, starry, starred, starring
 * Rhotic diphthong as // in square, scary
 * Short or normal sound, which is present before any consonant, as /æ/ in trap, carry, arid

For intervocalic "r" there are two spelling patterns for three sounds. As an example we put the table for "a". V is any vowel.

Below there is a complete table for all vowels. Cells in yellow indicate that there are very few examples.

(*) Exceptional sound for this spelling

Examples of intervocalic R
In the table below we show many examples of intervocalic R and the corresponding rhotic vowel sounds when the spelling uses one vowel letter.

R in combinations

 * "rh" sounds like "r"
 * rhinoceros - rhyme - rhythm


 * "wr" sounds like "r"
 * wrap - wrapper - wrist - write - wrong