See my post below
In an exchange with Anna about regular and irregular verbs, I pontificated about how people that learn Spanish after 15 have to practice their accents.
I mentioned (much like Mkohn above) the need to find similar "sounds" in English.
I always use the word cattle and battle and rattle where the "tt" are just like the "rrrrr" sound in Spanish.
It has to do with point of pronunciation (
pop), in "linguistic speak" ..the tip of the tongue lightly touches the alveolar ridge in back of the upper teeth (You can feel it there with your tongue) when you say battle or rattle or bottle....try it and think where your tongue is....
"TT" is not the "t" of "the" or "thorough". Nor like the "t" in "tough" or "towel" .
No, the "RR" and the "TT"" of "rattle" or "battle" are alike.
Try it and I'll bet you improve.
Erre con erre, cigarro
Erre con erre, Barril
R?pido corren los carros
Sobre los rieles del ferrocarril.
This goes even further. When an English Speaker (EP) says "todo" in Spanish, most Spanish speakers(SS) "hear" the word "toro" or bull. Why? Because the
pop for the ES "d" is exactly the same as the SS's "r" ..so you can also use words like griddle and riddle and fiddle to practice your "rrr"
This goes on and on with things like the SS's "d" being like the ES's "t" in "the" , giving "dedo" to the ES's ear like "thetho"///..
Isn't this fun??
HB