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+--- Thread: Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? (/thread-5856.html)
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - thurd - 2010-06-18
Alright, we all know that in Japanese the "L" sound is equivalent to "R" sound. What I want to know is there any significance to how one pronounces them like dialects, ancestry, gender or areas?
I ask because I was just listening to Yui and her pronunciation of これから is really characteristic ie. in most Japanese I listen to its clearly "korekara" but she just says "kolekala" and if I remember correctly she is consistent with it. She is from Fukuoka so I thought it might be how they sound in the south?
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - caivano - 2010-06-18
I don't think it's R or L, it's a sound somewhere in the middle that we don't have in English, which is why it's a bit difficult. It's closer to L than R though.
When I first started speaking Japanese I pronounced words using R and then L for my Japanese fried and she said L sounded way better than R so I'd go for that until you can get the right sound. Now if I say これから with the English R sound it sounds very wrong.
With regards to dialects I really don't know...
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - Javizy - 2010-06-18
Lightly pronouncing D puts your tongue somewhere around where it should be, but the movement is different for らりるれろ.
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - Dragonsheep - 2010-06-18
I also noticed Yui's l-ish pronunciation (from listening to the FMA Brotherhood opening song, lol).
I don't know why its like that, though.
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - masaman - 2010-06-18
Is she the one?
A lot of her ラリルレロ sound R to me in the interview (from 0:18), but I'm Japanese so it could be just me. How does this sound to you?
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - thurd - 2010-06-19
caivano Wrote:I don't think it's R or L, it's a sound somewhere in the middle that we don't have in English, which is why it's a bit difficult. It's closer to L than R though.Yeah its not a hard R or L but I think its the other way around. It's closer to R than L though.
In Poland we have a speech impediment that makes people pronounce R like L and this seems to be very close to the actual Japanese R/L sound, its not a hard R and still not a full L.
masaman Wrote:Is she the one?Yes its her. Indeed she does in most cases pronounce R clearly but for some words she uses different pronunciation (I'm not saying its wrong or anything but for my ear its very distinctive).
A lot of her ラリルレロ sound R to me in the interview (from 0:18), but I'm Japanese so it could be just me. How does this sound to you?
Look here, at around 01:12 she sings aLigato and at around 02:53 we have koLekaLa. How would you pronounce them masaman? Does it sound L'ish to you too?
Dragonsheep Wrote:I also noticed Yui's l-ish pronunciation (from listening to the FMA Brotherhood opening song, lol).Hehe thats how I found her and took interest. It was really easy to distinguish words since its like she is speaking rather than singing most of the time.
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - yudantaiteki - 2010-06-19
Hmm, it still sounds like the normal ラ行 to me, but I'm not Japanese.
It can also be because she's singing; sometimes people enunciate things differently when singing. Her speaking voice has completely normal sounding ら行 syllables.
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - saritza - 2010-06-19
Some singers do that on purpose to sound cool or original or something. I asked about this on lang-8 recently and that was the answer I got, lol. If you know the band Jyukai the singer also pronounces all her ラ行 as L, and she's from Osaka.
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - Jarvik7 - 2010-06-19
Don't read too much into it, it's just like Japanese radio DJs who try to sound like gaijin, emulating American radio DJs. It isn't their "real voice".
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - thurd - 2010-06-19
I see, thanks for all your replies.
Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings? - masaman - 2010-06-19
thurd Wrote:Look here, at around 01:12 she sings aLigato and at around 02:53 we have koLekaLa. How would you pronounce them masaman? Does it sound L'ish to you too?Yea, like other guys said, that's a singing pronunciation. Actually, many other singers do that too. ら行 uses a stop consonant, i.e. you need to stop, or chop, the sound but when they try to sing more fluidly, it sounds like the L'ish one in the link, I think. It might be something to do with vocal trainings they do, but it's the wildest conjecture. In any case, I don't think it is a regional accent.