The R in "car": American vs British English
Updated
Say “car park” and most listeners can place your accent before you finish the second word. The R is the single fastest clue: American English keeps it, standard British English lets it go. If you are choosing one accent to work on, this is the first sound to settle.
All audio on this page is an AI voice (neural text-to-speech), one American and one British.
Which accent pronounces the R?
American English is rhotic: every written R after a vowel is pronounced. Standard British English (Received Pronunciation) is non-rhotic: an R after a vowel is silent unless another vowel follows straight after it.
When the British R goes silent, the vowel before it does the work instead. It becomes long (/ɑː/, /ɔː/) or glides into a schwa (/ɪə/).
| Word | American | British |
|---|---|---|
| car | /kɑɹ/ | /kɑː/ |
| park | /pɑɹk/ | /pɑːk/ |
| hard | /hɑɹd/ | /hɑːd/ |
| more | /mɔɹ/ | /mɔː/ |
| here | /hɪɹ/ | /hɪə/ |
car American: British:
park American: British:
hard American: British:
more American: British:
here American: British:
Listen to the end of each British word. There is no R. Instead, the vowel is longer, or in “here” it slides into a short “uh”.
Hear it in a sentence
“The car park is over there.” has four places where an R can go: car, park, over, there.
American: British:
In the American version you hear an R in all four words. In the British version you hear none of them.
What a scorer hears
We scored both AI voices against the American English scoring accent. We used the same scoring engine and settings that AnyAccent uses in the app. For American English, the scorer grades each sound and also reports what it actually heard.
Example result: the word “car”, scored as American English
| Voice | Word score | Score for /ɑɹ/ | Sound the scorer heard |
|---|---|---|---|
| American AI voice | 100 | 100 | /ɑɹ/ |
| British AI voice | 85 | 78 | /ɑ/ (no R) |
Example result: “The car park is over there.”, scored as American English
| Voice | ”park” | /ɑɹ/ in “park” |
|---|---|---|
| American AI voice | 94 | 94 |
| British AI voice | 82 | 82 |
How to read this:
- The American scorer marked the missing R in “car” and “park”. For “car” it named the sound it heard instead: /ɑ/, with no R.
- Both voices are correct for their own accent. The British voice is not wrong. It simply does not match the accent it was scored against.
- The gap was small. Both voices scored over 93 on the full sentence. The R was one of the few places the scorer separated the two accents.
- Against the British scoring accent, both voices scored 100 on this sentence. That scorer did not mark the American R as an error here.
The scores above are from single runs on AI voices. Your own scores will depend on your recording.
How to practise it
For an American R
- Pull the tip of your tongue back so it does not touch the roof of your mouth. Some speakers curl the tip up; others bunch the body of the tongue. Both work.
- Round your lips slightly.
- Hold the R to the end of the word: “car” should end in R, not in “ah”.
- Drill pairs where only the R changes: “pa / par”, “caw / core”, “he / here”.
For a British (RP) R
- Before a consonant or a pause, drop the R and lengthen the vowel: “park” is /pɑːk/, “car” is /kɑː/.
- Before a vowel, bring the R back. This is the linking R: “car is” is /kɑːr ɪz/, “more ice” is /mɔːr aɪs/.
- For “here”, “near” and “clear”, glide into a short schwa: /hɪə/, not /hɪː/.
- Record a sentence with both cases, for example “Here and there, the car is far away.” Check that the R sounds only before a vowel.
Choose one pattern and keep it the same. A speaker who drops some Rs and keeps others is harder to follow than a speaker who uses either system all the way through.
Common questions
Do British speakers ever pronounce the R in “car”?
Yes, when the next word starts with a vowel. This is the linking R: “car is” is /kɑːr ɪz/. Before a consonant or a pause, the R stays silent.
Is the American or the British R more correct?
Neither. Both are standard. Choose the one you hear most, or the one your school or workplace uses, and keep it the same.
Which other English accents drop the R?
Most accents of England and Wales, and the standard accents of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, drop it. American, Canadian, Scottish and Irish English keep it.
Practise with a scorer
AnyAccent lets you pick the accent you practise against. For American English, you get sound-level diagnosis: the app names the sound you missed. For British English, you get word and sentence scores.
See the full sound guides for American English and British English, and read about the linking R.