Vocalization of l & r sounds - hidden meanings?

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Reply #1 - 2010 June 18, 4:47 pm
thurd Member
From: Poland Registered: 2009-04-07 Posts: 756

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?

Reply #2 - 2010 June 18, 5:36 pm
caivano Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2010-03-14 Posts: 705

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...

Reply #3 - 2010 June 18, 6:03 pm
Javizy Member
From: England Registered: 2007-02-16 Posts: 770

Lightly pronouncing D puts your tongue somewhere around where it should be, but the movement is different for らりるれろ.

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Reply #4 - 2010 June 18, 6:47 pm
Dragonsheep Member
Registered: 2010-05-18 Posts: 25

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.

Last edited by Dragonsheep (2010 June 18, 6:48 pm)

Reply #5 - 2010 June 18, 7:47 pm
masaman Member
From: Colorado Registered: 2009-03-06 Posts: 486

Is she the one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNXEV2pcBL0

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?

Last edited by masaman (2010 June 18, 7:47 pm)

Reply #6 - 2010 June 19, 2:28 am
thurd Member
From: Poland Registered: 2009-04-07 Posts: 756

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?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNXEV2pcBL0

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?

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).
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.

Last edited by thurd (2010 June 19, 2:42 am)

Reply #7 - 2010 June 19, 7:31 am
yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

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.

Reply #8 - 2010 June 19, 7:46 am
saritza Member
From: USA Registered: 2008-10-23 Posts: 23

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.

Reply #9 - 2010 June 19, 7:58 am
Jarvik7 Member
From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

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".

Reply #10 - 2010 June 19, 8:04 am
thurd Member
From: Poland Registered: 2009-04-07 Posts: 756

I see, thanks for all your replies.

Reply #11 - 2010 June 19, 1:19 pm
masaman Member
From: Colorado Registered: 2009-03-06 Posts: 486

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.

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