My 5 yr old daughter was given a task by her teacher to “find as many things as she can that have the sound r” with examples of rabbit, barrow, and ruler (all r’s were underlined in the 3 words).
She was criticised by the teacher for answering with the word “heart”, because “it’s the sound r not the way the word is spelled”. This bugs me because I’m not 100% sure whether it’s correct!
We are in New Zealand, and I have to admit we generally pronounce words like heart and harder as haat and haada. If we were to use (reasonably) strict UK English, would the r be carefully pronounced or can it be essentially silent?
Answer
There is no /r/ sound in ‘heart’. It is pronounced /hɑːt/.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Highly Irregular , Answer Author : Barrie England