Why do Japanese confuse L's with R's

Duo

As the Rush Comes

25 Apr 2003

1,496

68

• 3 Jun 2004

• #1

I've been wondering for this for a while. Why is it that Japanese usually pronounce the L in English words as an R? Could someone elaborate ?

 

den4

先輩

Twenty-year veteran

15 Nov 2002

1,837

64

• 3 Jun 2004

• #2

The L and R sounds very similar in Japanese, because there is no "letter/character" in the hiragana/katakana that can distinguish between them. The same goes with the H and F sound, and this will create confusion sometimes when you sometimes hear a nihonjin say: Mt. Fuji or Mt. Huji.
I'm sure others in this forum will give better examples, because I don't know anything....

 

Glenn

一切皆苦

8 Jan 2004

7,842

200

• 4 Jun 2004

• #3

Haha, though that was pretty good, den4. The Japanese actually don't have either an "l" or an "r" sound, they are kind of the same, with a "d" sound mixed in there to really throw you off. The way the Japanese "r" (ra gyﾃｴ) was explained to me was that it is like pronouncing "l" and "r" at the same time.

Also of note, in Mandarin Chinese the "r" sound is the same as the Japanese "r," although there is a "l" sound (e.g. lai, liao, liu, and le).

 

RockLee

Hullu

22 Apr 2004

3,806

133

• 4 Jun 2004

• #4

yeah....it cracks me up still...my friend always makes mistakes with the R and L like plactice -> practice

 

Lina Inverse

後輩

29 Apr 2004

1,700

49

• 4 Jun 2004

• #5

There's still more like that, like "shi" and "si" being the same in Japanese, making it very difficult for some to distinguish between "she" and "sea"

 

Glenn

一切皆苦

8 Jan 2004

7,842

200

• 4 Jun 2004

• #6

Yeah, there are a whole slew of them, actually. It's due to Japanese not having nearly as many sounds as English.

 

Duo

As the Rush Comes

25 Apr 2003

1,496

68

• 4 Jun 2004

• Thread starter
• #7

My Japanese friend in high school had no problem with English and French pronounciation. So I guess it's something that just requires a lil practice.

 

Glenn

一切皆苦

8 Jan 2004

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• 4 Jun 2004

• #8

I would imagine that it requires a lot of practice and immersion. Also, different people pick up languages and sounds with different levels of ease, and some people will do their best to sound like a native speaker, while most will just come close. The people who just come close are most likely just thinking that if they are understood, then everything is alright. It takes a pretty anal person to try to perfect each new sound of a foreign language.

 

RockLee

Hullu

22 Apr 2004

3,806

133

• 4 Jun 2004

• #9

Glenn said:

It takes a pretty anal person

Click to expand...

Anal????you mean verbal/oral ????

 

Glenn

一切皆苦

8 Jan 2004

7,842

200

• 4 Jun 2004

• #10

I'm not sure whether that was a joke. :?

 

N

nekosasori

Occasional visitor

21 May 2004

124

5

• 4 Jun 2004

• #11

I was about to say it takes an aural person to get the sounds right. Also, it helps if you're exposed to phonemes as early in life as possible - as one grows older, it becomes increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to tell apart sounds that hadn't been part of your memories whilst younger. That's why some Japanese speakers are actually worse than 50-50 at guessing whether they hear an l-word or r-word. The ra-gyou is between the two...

 

Lina Inverse

後輩

29 Apr 2004

1,700

49

• 5 Jun 2004

• #12

nekosasori said:

I was about to say it takes an aural person to get the sounds right. Also, it helps if you're exposed to phonemes as early in life as possible - as one grows older, it becomes increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to tell apart sounds that hadn't been part of your memories whilst younger. That's why some Japanese speakers are actually worse than 50-50 at guessing whether they hear an l-word or r-word. The ra-gyou is between the two...

Click to expand...

That's some part of it, but not too much. It hugely varies from person to person. While one person is very proficient with languages (even without early exposure), another person might have simply no talent there, even if he had early exposure.
So, the early exposure can help a little bit, but not more. It still mostly depends on the person's ability.

 

Glenn

一切皆苦

8 Jan 2004

7,842

200

• 5 Jun 2004

• #13

Yes, talent is important (and being an aural person would be someone who is talented at picking up sounds), but the less aural you are, the more anal you would have to be to get the sounds just right.

 

bossel

後輩

28 Sep 2003

1,485

45

• 5 Jun 2004

• #14

nekosasori said:

Also, it helps if you're exposed to phonemes as early in life as possible - as one grows older, it becomes increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to tell apart sounds that hadn't been part of your memories whilst younger.

Click to expand...

The earlier the better! If babies are exposed to sounds that are not common in their mother tongue, they can distinguish these sounds much better later in life. But the foreign sounds need to come from live persons, not from some media.

Social interaction plays key role in how infants learn language, studies show

So, it's good to have some foreign friends if you have a baby.

 

Glenn

一切皆苦

8 Jan 2004

7,842

200

• 5 Jun 2004

• #15

bossel said:

So, it's good to have some foreign friends if you have a baby.

Click to expand...

Well, only if you want your baby to be multilingual.