The French 'R'

My French is coming along slowly. Yesterday I was watching a news show and there were a few people I almost understood. I'm starting to get an ear for the language--but just starting. Still, most of what I hear doesn't register as words. It isn't until I realize that they said something I would understand that I can even make out what it is they said. It's a slow process--especially with the plethora of 1 and 2 letter words and words that have more letters but only pronounce 1 or 2.

But on top of all those problems, there is something about the way the French make their 'R' sound that stops my internal parser cold. It's like "#pragma error"--just stops any attempts I was making at detecting words. I don't know why a single sound would do that. It's annoying. Even if I was following the sentence, that sound stops everything and flushes my rehearsal memory. Maybe it's still too novel to me. When I hear it, it sounds almost like a caricature of the sound. Like they are making fun of their language by making that sound event though they are just talking normally. I hope it ends soon. The sound is too common for me to continue getting tripped up like that. My favorite website onvasortir.com has that sound at the end of sortir. I can't even say the sound. I've tried, but when I do, it doesn't sound like the French R at all. I might as well try to paint the Mona Lisa.