Playout date: 16 March 2007
Duration: 14:12
Views at the time added to HTV: 95,109
Likes at the time added to HTV: 552
Dislikes at time added to HTV: 26
Popularity % ” ” ” =L/(L+D): 95.5%
Comments at time added: 179
Total interactions at time added: 757
Total interactions to views 0.8%
Camera: Logitech Webcam
Post Production: None
Location: Home
Other people featured: Sophie
Genre: Linguistic Meandering
Music used: None
Languages used: English and a panorama of others
Animals/plants featured: Ameca in the background
Other remarks:

This is one of my most viewed and appreciated videos because, as I know from the ten percent of lepers who return, it has actually enabled people to crack getting a rolling r. It would appear that literally hundreds of people got the hang of it by listening to this explanation after failing with other explanations. The problem is, to put the tongue in the right place but the muscles of the tongue don’t get involved beyond placing the tongue where it will be a reed. The exhaling breath moves it then. It’s impossible to make the sound while breathing in, while French r can be made this way.

The video gives a dpdpdp techique to get the tongue in the right place, and after that talks about other values for “r” in a number of other languages, from Polish to Old English, Icelandic and Hungarian, as well as ideas for Latin practice.

Quote of the clip: “Just my Russian humour, we always like to joke about weapons, you know?”