How to Pronounce Japanese Ra Ri Ru

Instructional Video: Japanese [らりる] for English Speaker

[pwnshhhop]

I'm a beginner learning Japanese and the "r" sound is the one thing so far that I can't get the hang of.

[spencer]

When I hear Japanese people pronounce it, it sounds like a 'd' sound to me and I only hear a slight difference between the actual Japanese 'd' and 'r' sounds.

[huck]

It sounds like 'L' and 'D' to me. I'm Japanese btw

[aminishnamedvaati]

I’m not even a pro at the English R sound yet. How am I supposed to do the Japanese R.

[michelle]

Do not even think of these Japanese sounds as having anything to do with the "r" in English.
It is a sound entirely different than all of our English sounds. So, get your mouth and your lips and tongues into the locations that make the sounds you hear in this video. it will be awkward for you and you'll have to experiment before you get it right.
If you want to speak any language without an accent, you MUST learn how to make the sounds of that language, not the sounds you learned when you were a baby learning your mother tongue. If you had learned Japanese as a baby, you would have been learning to make Japanese sounds, not English sounds.
New language . . . new positions for you and your mouth to learn!
If you can learn to make the sounds correctly by teaching your mouth, tongue, and lips to do so, you can successfully speak the language, in this case -- Japanese, without an accent!
Good luck!

[imissharambe]

For anyone struggling with this in the future; you need to learn the listening skills to distinguish between the Japanese r-sound and other sounds, as well as how to position your tongue, lips, and airflow. Play the comparison in the video several times a week until you can hear a difference, and then try and match it using the positioning (tongue touching your mouth roof.)

Most languages have an r-sound that sounds completely unique. This is my third language, French being second and English being first. Trust me when I say, the Japanese r-sound is much easier to learn than French's r-sound. That thing was a nightmare

[Johnnymushio]

It's uncomfortable to say it the Japanese way. It's like I'm cutting my breath short. English Japanese ri. Also, I can't look at the top of the tongue in the video because I don't know where it is.

[carrotail]

It’s not supposed to sound like a d it’s supposed to sound like and L

It’s not and L sound but it’s more similar to and L sound that D

[fiendfrank]

So is ru basically pronounced as "lu"

[calincucuietu]

Basically, it is trilled (tapped -flapped) t as in the American beTTer, laDDer, But under the influence of other sounds it is produced as l. As they don't have a l letter, the Japanese think that r and l are slightly different variants of the same sound.
Well, they have the same Japanese concept about green and light blue colors. For them light blue is shade of green.
From these type of cultural misunderstandings spring bad explanations.

Everyone non-Japanese, use the tapped t and don't fret over a minor pronunciation problem.

[kaupiefan]

Okay so, I found a method for me to say it correctly. When saying the letter r, flick your tongue to the top of your mouth. It'll sound like the japanese r. It's not perfect, but it's close enough. It's like saying the English r, but it's way more open. Hope this helps!

[stefanhansen]

Another problem with the "r sound" in Japanese, is that it is not always pronounced the same way. Sometimes it is closer to the English r, other times it is closer to the English l. And a lot of Japanese speakers are not even aware of this themselves, so when they try to explain it, it can add more confusion than clarification.

[Steve-vonr]

Damn this is hard, thanks for the video

[complexknight]

I struggle with this so much I just wanna be able to sound right

[crimsondairy]

THANKS SO MUCH! IT REALLY HELPED ME 😭😭🙏🙏🙏

[rizmontano]

It's like Spanish rolling the R, but only one tongue tap some one said

[jomana]

Simply put, feel the position of your tongue when you do the normal R then L, between them is the sound D, pronounce an L in its place.

[ldtvnep]

Yes is hard for me to pronounce R's in english for me even as my first language so The R's in japanese are easy to adapt to. 😂

[krish]

you said in japanese 'ra ri ru' we touch the roof of mouth which makes the air flow stop and sounds like half-spelled R sound with la sound added to it ... but in 2:23 you are showing flow of air while speaking

[alansmithee]

They really just got a man to sit in front of a microphone and say "ree" repeatedly.