is the japanese r pronounced like an L?

Question

or is it more like.. Rolls the r.. like in spanish ?

Answer 1

It's not exactly like an 'l', and its not quite like a spanish 'r'. It's rolled but it's kinda in the middle of "l" and "r". You can't get it just from asking someone on yahoo answers, you should try to listen to native Japanese speakers, get some learning cassetes and try to mimic them, it's not hard but you have to hear it. It is kinda closer to "l" though.

Answer 2

In the Japanese language, there is no difference between the sound for "r" and the sound for "l" so when they speak English, many Japanese people sound as though they are saying "rike" for "like" etc. This is because the human brain learns to distinguish phonemes and morphemes between birth and approximately two years of age, so a person whose first language is Japanese does not have the proper coding in their brain to differentiate between those two sounds. For example, an American whose first language is English, if they were trying to learn Russian, they would find it extremely difficult to understand and pronounce the difference between the English "H" sound and the Russian "X" sound or the Hebrew "CH" sound.

Answer 3

Actually I heard it was the other way around, L's are pronounced as R's; as in "i ruv you" or "raser tag"

In the Japanese language they have no concept of the consonant sound "L", which is why many Japanese people mispronounce words containing the letter L.

Answer 4

There is a slight L sound. However, do NOT make the mistake of many dubbing companies, and say that a character named Kirara is pronounced KiLaLa. It's one of the more annoying things about American dubbing.

Answer 5

yes it does.for example they spell kolkata as korukata.there is no alphabet such as l in japanese.