Hello Japanese Class Community, I have a question about Japanese Pronunciation.… - Feed Post by Akai_Malice
Hello Japanese Class Community,
I have a question about Japanese Pronunciation.
I've been learning Japanese for roughly 8 years, and at that time I was told that many Japanese people pronounce R and L the same. So in English if a Japanese person were to say Rain they would say Lain, or if they asked for rice it might be like hearing them ask for Rice. We were told this as we were learning in case we went on an exchange and heard people using L pronunciation.
Okay now that I have that coverage out of the way, I've always had trouble pronouncing Japanese, I can listen and follow a conversation really well, I'm about an intermediate level on pen and paper and I'm just doing the lessons here to gain some more experience for my love of the country.
I was practicing aloud some words as I was having some difficulties pronouncing the R, it just wouldn't flow out of my mouth, but then when I switch to L I could pronounce the word alot better. My speaking became a bit more fluid.
Japanese people use L instead of R, is it unheard of for people who speak English to speak Japanese to use L instead of R as well? I've also noticed that in English sometimes my R's sound like W's, its easier to fix that since its my native language though. But Japanese being a second language to me, I don't want to speak a broken Japanese, I want to speak it fluently.
So is it okay to use L instead of R when Learning? And will it be okay to speak to Japanese people using L instead of R. Instead or Ra, Ri, Ru, Re, Ro, it would be, La, Li, Lu, Le, Lo.
Please help me? Or is there more to this? Like are only some letters Ls because they're more difficult.... AHHHHHHHHHHH
I have a question about Japanese Pronunciation.
I've been learning Japanese for roughly 8 years, and at that time I was told that many Japanese people pronounce R and L the same. So in English if a Japanese person were to say Rain they would say Lain, or if they asked for rice it might be like hearing them ask for Rice. We were told this as we were learning in case we went on an exchange and heard people using L pronunciation.
Okay now that I have that coverage out of the way, I've always had trouble pronouncing Japanese, I can listen and follow a conversation really well, I'm about an intermediate level on pen and paper and I'm just doing the lessons here to gain some more experience for my love of the country.
I was practicing aloud some words as I was having some difficulties pronouncing the R, it just wouldn't flow out of my mouth, but then when I switch to L I could pronounce the word alot better. My speaking became a bit more fluid.
Japanese people use L instead of R, is it unheard of for people who speak English to speak Japanese to use L instead of R as well? I've also noticed that in English sometimes my R's sound like W's, its easier to fix that since its my native language though. But Japanese being a second language to me, I don't want to speak a broken Japanese, I want to speak it fluently.
So is it okay to use L instead of R when Learning? And will it be okay to speak to Japanese people using L instead of R. Instead or Ra, Ri, Ru, Re, Ro, it would be, La, Li, Lu, Le, Lo.
Please help me? Or is there more to this? Like are only some letters Ls because they're more difficult.... AHHHHHHHHHHH
posted by Akai_Malice
Comments 17
Whoops grammatical error, they might ask for Rice but it would sound like Lice
I think I get what you're trying to say, but the short answer is no, lol. You have to mimic how a Japanese person pronounces it. I mean, you can say it however you want to, but if you want to get as close to how a Japanese person says it, you have to copy what you hear.
In my country -- Brazil -- some people pronounce "carro", what would sounds like CAr-HOpe, as "caro", CAr-ROpe but this R sound is similar to the Spanish R; in most of the cases they don't notice it, I think it is the same in Japanese, but a bit less frequent. My guess is because the Japanese R sound is pronounced with the tip of the tongue similar to the L sound.
I don't have worries about Japanese pronunciation because my native language have all the Japanese sounds, but I don't know how to explain them in English (the R sound, for example).- has*
It's kind of in between/a mixture of R and L. heres a really great video explaining it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2wzUuGm7yw- I was thinking about it yesterday before bed, and I think that the Japanese R sound is the L sound when you tremble the tip of your tongue, so if you don't tremble the tip of your mouth you produces a L sound. Just thoughts.
It's called a "flap R", because the tip of the tongue flicks quickly against the roof of the mouth as it is being pronounced. It can sound almost like a 'D' sound. You may possibly have heard a British English speaker say "very" so that it sounds almost like "veddy"; that's the same sound.
About the R and L I don't remember where but some Japanese person on the internet said it's pronounced to 80% like an r to 11% like an l and to 9% like an d. Or something like that.
I dont have the link right now but there is a youtube chanel called tofugu. i think a guy named koichi did a vid on the r/l sound. it was pretty helpful. its probably an older video.
@Jadore, That's the same video kazzeko posted 4 comments earlier. It's interesting how a lot of us have seen the same video, it came to my mind too when I saw this question. ^^
Oh, yeah it's totally okay! Anything that helps you pronounce is okay. In Japanese, the sounds are more fluid than in English, so using the softer sounds that the letter "L" makes is usually more accurate than using the harsher sounds that the letter "R" makes. My mom is from Japan, and she's been speaking English for many years, but sometimes she still has trouble with things like that. Pronunciation will get easier the more you speak, so keep practicing!- Thank you Everyone for your help!
No matter. Many foreigners get difficulties about it, as same as the Japanese people difficult to say letter of L .... :-D
For what I know, to the Japanese, R and L sounds very similar to the point where they can't tell them apart. Effectively, it should be the same letter in their ears, so it shouldn't strictly matter which sound you gravitate towards. Among my Japanese teachers at Uni, for example, I had some that mixed L and R a lot, some that only seemed to use R, and one who almost exclusively used L when she spoke.
As a Swedish native speaker, I used to have the same problem, but with S and Z. In Swedish, we don't have a Z sound, so I hear all Z sounds as S. It's taken a lot of practice for me to be able to hear the difference at all. It's an obvious difference to English speakers, but to me the sounds are exactly the same unless I really focus. I'm pretty sure it's the same for Japanese people and R/L. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but for what I know, anything you're comfortable with in that spectrum should work without it sounding weird.
(Only read the original post). The Japanese R is a mix of both L and R. On occasions it sounds like L, but usually sounds like R. For example, try saying べんり out loud a few times. Swapping between L and R, it is obvious why the Japanese favour a sound closer to L on this one.
らりるれろ(MGS shout out) is right smack dab between l and r. It's why so many Japanese students who do not study English abroad end up having problems saying either clearly.- By far the best reference I know of for understanding this and other aspects of Japanese pronunciations is the audio book "Pronounce It Perfectly In Japanese" by Charles Shirō Inouye, published in 1995 by Barron's.
I'm not suggesting you buy it, because online you'll only find it for sale at ridiculously high prices over 10x the recommended retail price as it is out-of-print. However, if you are able to request it at a library or find if at *some other place*, I highly recommend trying to get it (both the book and the audio). ^^
Here is my understanding of how to make the Japanese R consonant sound:
The Japanese R-row consonant sound in phonology is called a "post-alveolar flap". Immediately behind your top teeth you have a hard lump called your "alveolar ridge". So "post-alveolar" means the back part of your alveolar ridge. See the following diagram of where this is: http://goo.gl/TGW6Vd
Start with your tongue curled pointing upwards a bit, with the tip of your tongue behind your alveolar ridge (not quite touching it yet--leave a small distance gap). Then flap your tongue downwards, with the very end tip of your tongue making extremely light contact with the back side of your alveolar ridge, skimming past it. While you are doing all this, just try to add a *very slight* bit of a normal English R consonant sound.
Now just practice RA RI RU RE RO. It will only sound correct if you are pronouncing the vowel sounds with your tongue and mouth used correctly though, so check out the following video about this: https://youtu.be/VPJIwff3w0I
