ll vs. rr

[Kì'eyawn]

Kaltxì ma smuktu leNa'vi.  So, i listened to Dr. Frommer's listening exercise, and consistently mistook plltxe for poltxe.  I was confused, because i expected a trill would be a dead giveaway whenever ll or rr showed up in a word.  But then i just saw in William Annis' new grammar guide (tsaw woeiu nìngay, by the way) that, while rr is trilled, ll is not.  I feel like such a skxawng!  How did i miss this?  Was this specifically said at some point, or has it always been that way, and i just...messed up?

[Kayrìlien]

The LL has never been trilled; it's always been a sort of odd sound to describe. Perhaps the best common English word that has the PLL syllable in it is "PEOPLE". The "PLE" in "PEOPLE" should sound the same as the "PLL" in "PLLTXE".

Kayrìlien

[Muzer]

That depends heavily on accent - in mine, people is pronounced more like "peopul".

[Kì'eyawn]

The LL has never been trilled...

Tam, so i'm just a skxawng 

It is a difficult sound to describe; i'd been doing it right, except that i'd been trilling it—which is easy to fix, since i wasn't doing the trill with the tip of my tongue but in the back of my throat, anyway.  At least now i know why some words seemed to give me more trouble than they did anybody else 

[Txonä Unil Stä'nìyu Rolyusì]

The LL has never been trilled...

Tam, so i'm just a skxawng 

It is a difficult sound to describe; i'd been doing it right, except that i'd been trilling it—which is easy to fix, since i wasn't doing the trill with the tip of my tongue but in the back of my throat, anyway.  At least now i know why some words seemed to give me more trouble than they did anybody else 

No no no, you are not a skxawng. We all make mistakes. But yes, as Kay said, the ll has never been trilled. I always think of it as a "forward L sound" where I have my tongue right up behind my top front teeth.

-Txonä Rolyu