Techniques to improve pronunciation when I can manage to say parts of the word but not the full word (e.g. 2 nearby R sounds)

Question

Is there any tip on how to pronounce words that have two r's?

I'm using Forvo as my main "how-to-pronounce-something". But even when I hear these words 200x being pronounced, I can't!

Let me give you an example:

• I can pronounce mardi(1), ordinateur(2, but far from eachother), mercredi(2, close but first r comes after the vowel);
• I can't pronounce progrés, prendre and many other words that has the sound of the consonant combined with the sound of r

So, again, is there any technic to master these kind of words? For the rest, I can pronounce it all (mother tongue br-portuguese helps), this words make me feel a little bit sad. (I'm a good(?) way)

Answer 1

I don't know if it'll work for you, but my technique for hard-to-pronounce foreign languages where I can manage to pronounce individual syllables but not full words, has been to do slow pronunciation drills, working backwards from the end of the word - for example

Rès, rès, rès, rès

Grès, grès, grès, grès

Ogrès, ogrès, ogrès, ogrès

Rogrès, rogrès, rogrès, rogrès

Progrès, progrès, progrès, progrès

Le progrès, le progrès, le progrès, le progrès

Maybe try this out, walking your way up the word very slowly, and see if it works? Hope this helps, and if it works let us know how it goes!