Puerto Ricans like myself have many words that we alter.
Sometimes we omit letters or switch them. A lot of times I think we do it just to make the sentences flow better or to talk faster.
One of those switches is to replace the letter R for an L.
Some examples will be in words like:
Puerta becomes Puelta (Door)
Carta becomes Calta (letter)
Cantar becomes Cantal (to sing)
Empezar becomes Empezal (to start)
Buscar becomes buscal (to search for)
Esperar becomes Esperal (to wait)
Abrazar becomes Abrazal (to hug)
Puerto becomes Puelto (port)
As you can see the R has to be either inside the word or at the end of the word.
For example:
Puerto Rico (my country) In this case we would change the R in Puerto for Puelto but the word Rico we would not switch it to L sound because it is at the beginning of the word.
Risa- (laugh) We don’t change it to L
Remar- (to paddle) We don’t change it to L
Rivera (last name) We don’t change it to L
Rústico (Rustic) We don’t change it to L
However there is a sound that we use sometimes to replace that R when it is at the beginning of the word. I’ve heard this term is called the “R arrastrada” or “Dragged R”
You can hear that sound in the video inside this publication.
There are other instances where we never will switch that sound.
That is when the word have the structure like in the following:
Tra- Trabajar (To work)
Gra- Gracias (Thank you)
Bra- Brasil (The country Brazil)
Cra - Crayola (Crayon)
Dra- Drama (Drama)
Thank you for reading my post and watching my video. Please, let me know in the comments what you think about this switch from R to L. Do you like how it sounds? You don’t like it? I am curious about your thoughts on it.
Greetings from Puerto Rico!
