Hello!

I've recently started learning Japanese and I've stumbled upon a seemingly impassable obstacle. It's the R sound in ら、り、る、れ and ろ. I've been trying to pronounce it, but I'm failing spectacularly. It's like a mess of 50 % r, 40 % l and 10 % of what could possibly be... d? Sometimes it even seems to be 80 % l and 20 % r. Help!

I'm from Slovenia, so my R is massively different from the Japanese (and English) version. I can give you a short example of what I'm used to: Črka R. You can hear the r in Radio centeR, mali eRik, čRka R, etc.

Can anyone explain what I need to do with my tongue/mouth? Or are there any videos on the internet like this one? The only one I found is click, but it hasn't been of much help... is what he says correct?

The closest, is the English 'L' sound.

La Li Lu Le Lo

Please ignore Romaji's use of R.
Japan doesn't realise that L is a much closer sound. They shouldn't use R because its not the same as English R. At all. not even close.

Good luck!

worthy7 Wrote:The closest, is the English 'L' sound.

La Li Lu Le Lo

Please ignore Romaji's use of R.
Japan doesn't realise that L is a much closer sound. They shouldn't use R because its not the same as English R. At all. not even close.

Good luck!

Yep. I think that R was used because it is pronounced similarly to らりるれろ in languages like Spanish and Portuguese. Very misleading for English speakers.

It's much closer to D. It's basically half way between D and L.

The Finnish R is also almost exactly like the Japanese R, except we also have L so our R never sounds like an L (unless you have a speech impediment) like theirs sometimes (seemingly at random) does.

It's not very close to "L" either -- personally I think "d" is the closest English sound. You do almost the same movement of your tongue as with English "d" but your tongue contacts the roof of the mouth only slightly.

The technical linguistic term is a "flap" or "tap", meaning that the tongue only taps against the roof of your mouth (unlike "d", where you hold it briefly and then have a puff of air).

You can look at this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_flap
The section "occurrence" under the first section has a number of sounds in different languages that are close to the Japanese ra-gyo; you can see if there's any sound in there from a language you know.

I studied spanish in high school, and could never roll my Rs until 20 years later studying Japanese.
It's generally not the objective in Japanese (although guys sometimes do it to sound manly), but I think if you prepare yourself to roll your R, but stop just short of the roll, then you're making the right sound.

Vempele Wrote:except we also have L so our R never sounds like an L (unless you have a speech impediment) like theirs sometimes (seemingly at random) does.

This is what's confusing me as well, the seemingly random switching between L and R. I'm a beginner so it's hard for me to judge, but it feels like it's almost a matter of personal preference how close to an L you want to make a certain R-hiragana sound. Although to my ears ろ is generally closest to L, followed by ら and れ, while る and especially り are somewhat closer to what could be considered R. Sometimes.

I've never had problems rolling the Rs, every kid in my country can do that. I've seen others suggest this as well, but I don't understand the point of it. I'd imagine it's aimed at English speakers to help them differentiate between the English R where your tongue is more at the back of your mouth?

I also had a look at the alveolar flap. I think I'm slowly starting to understand what it should be like. Basically a flip at the top of your mouth just before your teeth, but the really tricky part seems to be to hit the spot between where you pronounce the L and R and - I'm guessing, but it seems important - put more emphasis on the vowel than on the consonant.

Actually whatever, I'm going to record it sometime and let you be my judge. I've been searching for Japanese people here in Graz, but I had no success on either google, facebook or language exchange sites so far. Time to hit the few existing sushi bars!

I always thought this was a good exercise, unfortunately the audio clips aren't working for me, maybe that's just on my end though.

Helltrixz Wrote:I'm a beginner so it's hard for me to judge, but it feels like it's almost a matter of personal preference how close to an L you want to make a certain R-hiragana sound.

I don't think that's a good way to look at it. Japanese speakers aren't deciding whether they want to use an "l" or "r" sound; they're using the sound of Japanese. As a beginner you can't necessarily trust your ear. Of course no two Japanese speakers pronounce things literally exactly the same, but the range of variation of the ra-gyo in normal Tokyo speech does not include the English "L" sound.

(The sound may be closer to "L" than "R", but wrong is still wrong.)

The Japanese "r" is very similar to the Spanish rolled "r", except it is not trilled, and consists of a single flap of the tongue. If I had any experience with Spanish as a language, I could tell you whether or not it was 100% the same place of articulation. My students sometimes try to show off their tongue rolling ability to me, because they know I can't do it. It's pronounced slightly further back in the mouth compared to English "L", which is the English sound it most resembles.

The reason why it sometimes sounds like they say "r" and sometimes "l" is because of the way your brain processes the sounds that speakers make. So, for example, if you are expecting to hear "left", but your brain detects that the sound produced was not as far forward in the mouth as "l" should be, it will think it was "r", and you will hear "reft" instead. If you are expecting to hear "right", but your brain detects a sound that is not as far back in the mouth as "r" is, then you will hear "l". And so on.

I've always done it halfway between the (l) and ®, it also helps to keep your mouth more closed, even with the vowel sound at the end.

The English R sound, the English L sound, and the Japanese /r/ sound are three(or 4) different sounds. Consider them separately, rather than as combinations of each other, or "halfway between" each other which doesn't adequately describe their manner of articulation int he mouth. R and L in English are not simply more forward and back than each other; the tongue position is completely different.

Here's how they are pronounced:

English R: The tongue is curled back in the mouth. It doesn't touch the top of he mouth.

English L: The tip of the tongue is pushed against the roof of the mouth approximately where the roof of the mouth meets the back of the top teeth. The sides of the tongue do not touch the top of the mouth (like they do in /D/), so air flows around the side of the tongue.

JAPANESE: ＴＷＯ　ＡＬＬＯＰＨＯＮＥＳ
ら、り、る、れ、ろ　This is a TAP, the tip of the tongue just bounces off the top of the mouth. This is why it sounds more L-like than R-like, because of the contact with the roof of the mouth. However, make sure it bounces off quickly.

りゃ、あんり　-　Ｉn some combinations, like these (rya, anri, ryokan, etc), rather than a simple TAP, some speakers use a FLAP instead which involves curling the tongue backward and pressing it against the top of the mouth; then flicking it forward. This will vary amongst speakers, but I find using the flap is what makes natives say I am pronouncing the words correctly.

Why pronounce it half-way between and L and a D when you could just roll your R's and sound like you're in the Yakuza?

Te o kurrrrre!
手をくれ！

ashman63 Wrote:The English R sound, the English L sound, and the Japanese /r/ sound are three(or 4) different sounds. Consider them separately, rather than as combinations of each other, or "halfway between" each other which doesn't adequately describe their manner of articulation int he mouth. R and L in English are not simply more forward and back than each other; the tongue position is completely different.

Here's how they are pronounced:

English R: The tongue is curled back in the mouth. It doesn't touch the top of he mouth.

This is actually a huge misconception. When you look at ultrasounds of people pronouncing "r", the tip of the tongue has nothing to do with it, rather the blade and back of the tongue are raised towards the soft palate. The tongue also spreads out towards the teeth, blocking lateral airflow, and forcing it over the centre of the tongue instead.
The reason why I said that the l and the r are forward/ backwards in relation to each other is because most people commenting on/ reading this forum are not linguists, and a technical explanation is likely to confuse them, rather than make things clearer.

The only reason I mentioned the flap Wikipedia article is because they have examples of sounds in a bunch of languages that are much closer to the Japanese ra-gyo sound than any consonant in English.

[Zgarbas]

I just use R and don't worry about it since I have slight rhotacism and can't pronounce it much anyway. If people don't notice it in English or Romanian I doubt that it will affect my Japanese much.
(for once, speech impediments get rid of a problem instead of adding to it)

ktcgx Wrote:This is actually a huge misconception. When you look at ultrasounds of people pronouncing "r", the tip of the tongue has nothing to do with it, rather the blade and back of the tongue are raised towards the soft palate. The tongue also spreads out towards the teeth, blocking lateral airflow, and forcing it over the centre of the tongue instead.

Fascinating. I have a linguistics background and I can assure you my tongue curls back (at least slightly). Perhaps it is an idiosyncrasy of mine, or my particular variety of English.

ktcgx Wrote:The reason why I said that the l and the r are forward/ backwards in relation to each other is because most people commenting on/ reading this forum are not linguists, and a technical explanation is likely to confuse them, rather than make things clearer.

Fair enough.

ashman63 Wrote:

ktcgx Wrote:This is actually a huge misconception. When you look at ultrasounds of people pronouncing "r", the tip of the tongue has nothing to do with it, rather the blade and back of the tongue are raised towards the soft palate. The tongue also spreads out towards the teeth, blocking lateral airflow, and forcing it over the centre of the tongue instead.

Fascinating. I have a linguistics background and I can assure you my tongue curls back (at least slightly). Perhaps it is an idiosyncrasy of mine, or my particular variety of English.

Lol, I also studied linguistics at university, and they showed us a whole lot of ultrasounds of different sounds. But yes, different varieties of English pronounce the "r" differently. I think a strong american "r" could even be said to touch the top of the mouth at some point in its articulation, but that wouldn't be true of the "r" in my variety, which never comes even close and is liquidised in most cases. I think that unless you have an ultrasound done, you can't know exactly how your own tongue moves. I think my guess in your accent you're mistaking the movement of the blade for the tip. But of course, I could be wrong!

Zgarbas Wrote:I just use R and don't worry about it since I have slight rhotacism and can't pronounce it much anyway. If people don't notice it in English or Romanian I doubt that it will affect my Japanese much.
(for once, speech impediments get rid of a problem instead of adding to it)

Since Japanese has only one trill/tap/flap-y thing, it will still be understood no worries, it'll just sound a little strange...^^
(edit: sorry, typing on my phone leads to random words that shouldn't be in there )

worthy7 Wrote:The closest, is the English 'L' sound.

La Li Lu Le Lo

Please ignore Romaji's use of R.
Japan doesn't realise that L is a much closer sound. They shouldn't use R because its not the same as English R. At all. not even close.

Good luck!

I said the CLOSEST is L, the problem with D is that there is already a D (だぢづでど） sound in Japanese.
Start with L and you'll just need to tweek it a tiny bit to get a perfect らりるれろ sound

So maybe English should use something else instead of R, seeing as there are several languages that do use R for something that is closer to the Japanese R than anything in English.

Then again, it probably doesn't even rate among the top 100 things that are "wrong" with English spelling, so maybe not.

Vempele Wrote:So maybe English should use something else instead of R, seeing as there are several languages that do use R for something that is closer to the Japanese R than anything in English.

Then again, it probably doesn't even rate among the top 100 things that are "wrong" with English spelling, so maybe not.

Haha, then maybe the Germans and the French should stop using R too, since theirs are closer to the English one than the Spanish/Italian/Portuguese R I'm assuming you're referring to?

Really, the only people to whom the orthography of the Japanese R matters is the Japanese themselves, since it creates quite a lot of confusion with regards to the pronunciation of the foreign language they've chosen to force everyone there to learn.

worthy7 Wrote:I said the CLOSEST is L, the problem with D is that there is already a D (だぢづでど） sound in Japanese.
Start with L and you'll just need to tweek it a tiny bit to get a perfect らりるれろ sound

D is a different sound in Japanese. For an English D you put your tongue right about where a Japanese R is. That is, just a little bit back from your teeth on the roof of your mouth. For a Japanese d (and t, which is the same shape but with no vocal chords), you put your tongue farther forward. That's why the Japanese t and d sounds softer--your tongue doesn't push out as much air when it's closer to the teeth.

The English D really is closest to a Japanese R. That's actually what finally made it click in my head too. The main difference is that you kind of lightly flick your tongue instead of pushing it fairly hard against the top of your mouth like you would for a D sound.

Tzadeck Wrote:

worthy7 Wrote:I said the CLOSEST is L, the problem with D is that there is already a D (だぢづでど） sound in Japanese.
Start with L and you'll just need to tweek it a tiny bit to get a perfect らりるれろ sound

D is a different sound in Japanese. For an English D you put your tongue right about where a Japanese R is. That is, just a little bit back from your teeth on the roof of your mouth. For a Japanese d (and t, which is the same shape but with no vocal chords), you put your tongue farther forward. That's why the Japanese t and d sounds softer--your tongue doesn't push out as much air when it's closer to the teeth.

The English D really is closest to a Japanese R. That's actually what finally made it click in my head too. The main difference is that you kind of lightly flick your tongue instead of pushing it fairly hard against the top of your mouth like you would for a D sound.

If you're lazy in pronouncing words like "butter", the middle 2 "t"s turn into a Japanese R. Doesn't work with all accents.