Is r a separate phoneme or is it joined to another phoneme?

Answer 1

This varies according to accent. A phoneme is a speech sound, and in some accents, the r is strong, so it is a separate phoneme.

For example, in the word "word" there are three phonemes - w / or / d but this is where the differentiation between accents may come in to play. In some accents of the US, the r would be pronounced quite strongly, and be considered its own phoneme, whilst in England and Australia, the r is a very weak sound, and becomes part of the or phoneme.

Answer 2

It depends on the language. In some languages, such as English and Spanish, "r" can be a separate phoneme with different pronunciations. In other languages, it can be part of a consonant cluster or pronounced differently depending on its position in a word.