Ok, I was told.

“Please pronounce R in japanese like L as we have no R sound in Japanese”

I’m confused, because when I listen to Japan movies, I can hear a difference, R sounds like r and L sounds like L.

Anyone care to elaborate on this for me? I’m so confused.

There is a lot of confusion regarding this, specially among beginners. From what I can tell, the sound of Romaji R is neither the R or L that is used in English. It is a completely different sound that is kind of like either a very soft R or like a mix of L and D. I’m still trying to assimilate the sound myself; but when in doubt, it may be safer to pronounce it like an L.

Hi Greg, I’m learning Japanese myself. I noticed that some Japanese speakers often interchange the “Rs” and “Ls.” For example, when they say “arigatou,” it either sounds aRigatou or aLigatou. Unlike Josue, I think I’d go for the “R” sound for now until we confirm with a native speaker if the use of the “L” sound is permissible in most cases or just in some exceptions.

Greg, it’s pretty much what Josue said. It’s a mix of an “l” and “d” sound. It’s essentially a very light “d”. There aren’t any other kind of cases, Katherine. It’s the same sound with every word, in all of the Japanese language. What you don’t want to do is read romanji, unless you have no knowledge of Japanese hiragana and katakana. If you don’t know the hiragana and katakana alphabets, I suggest learning them before entering the language.

I see. Thanks Tyler. I do know my kana but the pronunciation does get confusing.

Greg, yeah its very difficult to explain the sound of Japanese ら、り、る、れ、ろ.

Ok, here’s my best way in trying to explain the sound of らline as compared to the English L and R.

The English L as in Lemon: Place your tongue on the upper gum (slightly above your upper teeth) and make the “eh” sound from your nose and mouth. Leh-mon.

The English R as in Error: Your mouth is slightly rounded. Arch your tongue back without touching any part of your mouth. Make the “err” sound using your abs. Err-or.

The Japaneseれ as in レモン（lemon）: Placing the tip of your tongue on the backside of your upper gum. Make the “eh” sound by flickering your tongue (lightly kick your tongue upwards). L-ehh-mon.

Does this make sense?

Katherine, there is only one pronunciation to the Japanese ら line (Arigato, Tyler san). I think the sound seems different due to the flow of the word or the person’s dialect/accent.
Around the Meiji-era in Japan, the government decided to use “R” to write the romans for ら line. So the romanized Japanese words are written with “R”.

Many Japanese people say the Japanese ら sound is close to English “T”, as in “splatter”.

Hai! (: Totally understood, Nao先生!
ありがとう :D
(デジタルカメラプリントがほしいんですが。)

Mmmmm My book says it’s between an R and L.

Ny name is pronounced Ruisu and get by without any misunderstandings :)

I’ve often heard that it is supposed to be between an “l” and an “r”. It seems to depend on the speaker. I’ve heard some native Japanese speakers that sound almost entirely like an “l” or almost entirely like an “r”. What really make the “r” sound in Japanese difficult for me was the soft d sound that seems to get mixed in. I noticed it first with ryorishiteimasu (to cook iirc).

I think generally to be understood, either your English “r” or “l” will work, but the more you practice, the more you’ll be able to slip in the middle like most Japanese speakers.

That was a great explanation Nao – probably the best I’ve seen! Awesome!

Here’s my estimate (and probably won’t help anyone at all)

70% “R”
25% “L”
5% “D”

Now, did that confuse you more than help you? Probably :P

now for all those from spanish descends remeber teh double rr and how hard we are made to say it, carro, ferrocarril, barril, etc
its hard to take one one r sound, but what if your in 2 Rs :O

I’m trying, but, it’s really difficult, maybe it’s just my accent. o.o

Thanks a lot for the explanations though, I’ll work at it.

Gregくん

I may confused you.
ごめんね。

Don’t worry about it so much^-;
Your pronunciation is really good. A+++
Actually, We, Japanese, are not picky at pronunciation at all.hehehe

We, Japanese, are really bad at pronouncing ‘R’ of yours.
Since we don’t have English R, Spanish R, Arabic R, etc….

Even we write down as REMON in Romaji, we pronounce it like LEMON….
We have a lazy tongue….

あまり、きにしないで～。　

NaNa

In the beginning I was rather confused about it as well. I was paying attention to my pronunciation the other day and I realized that my ‘r’ pronunciation varies. I guess Nana is right because although the sound that I use varies to everything between a Spanish single ‘r’ sound to an ‘l’ sound, the words are usually understood without problem. The major problem I see in other people is the pronunciation of syllables like ‘ryo’ ‘kyo’ without saying ‘ri-yo’ and ‘ki-yo.’ That was hard at first to. So for motivation I’ll say for those with these problems, listen to native speakers and try to best imitate it. Also try to relax (I have a problem doing this), as long as you don’t pronounce it like the ‘r’ is the English restaurant, you’re okay. ;D

I am learning Japanese and I have read about this topic countless times. Everyone either advices or confirms that the correct sound is neither R nor L but a mix between the two, just like some people have already pointed out here. However is very reasonable to think that some Japanese native speakers pronounce it more closely to an R and others to an L. Like Nao T said, depends on the accent / dialect. She is also right about its pronunciation very similar to the English “T” as in “splatter”, “better”, “matter”, ….

Another similarity is, if you know Spanish, the soft R sound as in Cara (face), Toro (bull) or América.

From the phonetic points, if you are American English speaker, you are actually familiar with the japanese “r” colum sounds already, because this is technically a sound called "flap"sound, and it happens in words such as “butter” or “ladder” – the “tt” “dd” parts. In British English it doesn’t happen, but if you are an American English speaker, you use the pronunciation, which almost sounds like “d”. That’s the sound for ra-ri-ru-re-ro in Japanese.

Though, the hard thing is that, those sounds never happens in the beginning of any words in American English, so even though you know what the sounds like, it’s hard to produce it in the beginning of the words…. you need to practice again and again!

Anyways, my point is, it’s not L or R, it is a “flap” sound.