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This study examines the acquisition of /r/ in German and Spanish monolingual and bilingual children. German and Spanish are characterized by different /r/s. German has a uvular approximant whereas Spanish has an alveolar tap and trill. Words containing /r/ were extracted from longitudinal recordings of the children, aged 1;9 to 3;6. Results indicate that monolingual German children acquired uvular /r/ earlier than monolingual Spanish children acquired the tap and trill. The bilingual children acquired uvular /r/ similarly to the monolingual children or, in the case of /r/ clusters, they were mildly delayed. They were advanced in the acquisition of alveolar tap and they produced more /r/-like errors for the trill. Transfer patterns were observed in one child but they could not be explained by markedness or language dominance. Findings are consistent with cross-linguistic interaction in the acquisition of /r/, in which the phonological systems of the bilinguals approximate each other.
