R r — er
«er» is a consonant of Slovenian, the “Gajica” script, read as “a tapped r, a syllable of its own between consonants”. An ordinary r. But with no vowel around, r itself becomes the syllable: a tiny “uh” sneaks in before it. For example, in the word “trg” — square. The Slovenian alphabet has 25 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. Hence words without a single written vowel: trg sounds like “tuhrg”, prst like “puhrst”, vrt like “vuhrt”. It appears, for example, in the word “dober dan” — good afternoon.
In short
| Character | R r |
| Name | er |
| Sound | a tapped r, a syllable of its own between consonants |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 18th of 25, its neighbours in the course are p and s, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How it sounds
An ordinary r. But with no vowel around, r itself becomes the syllable: a tiny “uh” sneaks in before it
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- trgsquare
The character in the “familiar to the eye, foreign to the ear” group
Seven letters where your English reading habit will betray you.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «er» it is “a tapped r, a syllable of its own between consonants”, as in the word “trg”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 25 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Slovenian character r read?
As “a tapped r, a syllable of its own between consonants” — it is a consonant of the “Gajica” script. An ordinary r. But with no vowel around, r itself becomes the syllable: a tiny “uh” sneaks in before it. For example, in the word “trg” — square.
What is the letter r called?
Er. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Slovenian script: it is called “er” and reads as “a tapped r, a syllable of its own between consonants”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can r be confused with?
Hence words without a single written vowel: trg sounds like “tuhrg”, prst like “puhrst”, vrt like “vuhrt”. Similar characters are best studied side by side and deliberately compared: learned on different days, they stay separate and get mixed up at their first meeting inside a word.