Am/Can English: Is the "r" before vowels the same as the "r" after vowels?

This is a complicated (and good!) question that depends a lot on which dialect you're looking at, and it particular, it's [rhoticity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English). I'm American, so my dialect is rhotic (most Americans are rhotic, but not all!), and I would consider the 'r' in "earn" to be the same as "real", but in a non-rhotic accent, the 'r' in "earn" kind of disappears. I can see that for example, wiktionary does list different IPA for the two words ([earn](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/earn) vs [real](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/real)), but at least to me, it doesn't feel like they are different. (I pronounce "earn" and "urn" the same, so I'm going to switch to using "urn" so it doesn't get confused with "ear"). The 'r' in "real" is clearly a consonant, but the 'r' in "urn" kind of merges with the 'u' to form an "r-vowel" of sorts. As if 'ur' is one vowel. So I suppose that's one difference. [This Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnEIKavamks) talks a lot about rhoticity across different dialects and how r "colors vowels" in non-rhotic dialects (kind of similarly to how 'w' colors vowels, for example in the word "vowel" or "law")

No, in my region at least (Great Lakes of North America), these are two different sounds entirely. Before vowels “r” represents an approximant consonant. After vowels it represents a modification in the “quality” of the vowel. In both cases this involves a raised and fronted tongue, but they are still rather different.

In most American dialects/accents the "R" is pronounced the same before and after the vowel. As others have said "earn" would be pronounced the same as "urn". There are a few non-rhotic American dialects though where the 'R' after the vowel would not be pronounced. Bugs Bunny's accent is a good example. One of his famous lines is "I should've made that left turn in Albuquerque", but he pronounces it as "I should-a made that left toyn in Al-buh-koy-kee"

I feel your pain. I'm a native English speaker, but I grew up in a non-rhotic area of the world. Over a 1/4-century of living in Canada, I still have difficulties introducing "r's" into my words. Sometimes I think I should've moved to New England instead, and then I wouldn't've had to change!

It's likely that you're having problems with the "r-coloured vowel", which is a fairly rare sound, but happens to be in two major standard languages. I speak a non-rhotic dialect, which lost the "R coloured" aspect, so I can't really give advice on how to say them. This video may be a good place to start. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbLcJ1G6Fiw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbLcJ1G6Fiw)

It would be better to not pronounce the r than roll it/trill it. The r in English is no longer rolled except for a very few dialects while there are many that drop the r altogether, especially after a vowel. My native accent (which I've almost completely lost now) is one of them.

In "earn", place the back of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and keep the tip down. Then pass a soft "eh" through it. You'll end up with the English soft R sound.

r in American English is generally either the postalveolar approximant, /ɹ/, or the velar bunched approximate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_alveolar_and_postalveolar_approximants I don’t know what your first language is, so here’s the wikipedia page for the sound. /r/ (the tapped version) is, counterintuitively, never represented with an r in American English, usually instead being denoted by tt, d, or dd.

Can you fake growl, rrrrrr? Or pretend pirate, arrrrrrr? Can you say the letter, R? Practice shortening ‘rrrr’ and ‘arrr’ until you get one ‘r’ sound. If you have to say ‘earrrrn’ to get it then do that. For Spanish, I can’t roll/trill my R’s mid-word but I can kind of get there if I say ‘purr’ or “hurr” so if I were trying to get better at that sound, I’d keep practicing. For now I can at least do a short ‘flap’ R sound which is like half a trill… so I use that until I can get the trill.

Not roll, but rather bunch up your tongue. The /r/ sound in North America is pretty difficult to precisely define, even by linguists. But it generally involves some retraction or compression of the tongue in your mouth, as well as some rounding of the lips. Maybe a speech therapist would be better able to explain it than me, some rando on Reddit lol.

When I say “run/urn” in my General American dialect, my tongue goes between the same places, just in the opposite direction.

Not sure if it helps, but in the US, earn is pronounced like urn, irn, or ern (not all actual words). Any of those vowels just get absorbed by the R. So you can just make the RRRR sound and finish with "n".

Americans are very big on saying Rs, not so much the English. No Rs need to be rolled in English, so you can either just speak as you already do and maybe have to repeat sometimes or practice exaggerating those Rs. Maybe watch some US films and practice by repeating what they say straight after.

Read up on rhotic vs non-rhotic dialects. But for me at least it’s not a roll. My tongue forms kind of a u shape and the sound moves forward in my mouth. Not on the teeth, and not on the hard pallet but in-between. It’s actually very close to making an “oo” as in root, but the tongue collapses partially towards the roof of the mouth. And for me “earn” and “urn” are the same sound, and the first part is what I was taught the letter r sounds like.

You don't roll your tongue in either in the standard American dialect. I think "earn" would definitely be hard to pronounce if you're rolling your tongue. I have noticed that generally, consonants sound different if they're before or after vowels (obviously, in the middle they have both sounds). Anyway, [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxuFAlJHLv8) a video on the pronunciation and [here's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_alveolar_and_postalveolar_approximants) a clip of the pronunciation from Wikipedia.