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How do you pronounce the Japanese "r"? Is it more like an "l" or something
inbetween? Would there be any picture or video explaining it correctly, please
link it!
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2011-06-15T10:19:35.230
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pronunciation
How do you pronounce the Japanese "r"?
It's in between the English "l" and "r" sounds. Make a "l" sound, but sweep
the tip of your tongue back without letting it touch your hard palate.
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2011-06-15T10:24:53.503
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The sound that's transcribed in Romaji as 'r' is what's refered to in
phonetics as an [alveolar flap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_flap)
(or alveolar tap). It's a sound made by quickly tapping the tip of your tongue
on the alveolar ridge (the same place you use to pronounce sounds like 't' or
'l') and to native American English ears sounds somewhere between an 'r' and
an 'l'.

If you are an American English native speaker, you probably already make this
sound when speaking your own language. It's what's the double-t is pronounced
as in "better", for example.
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2011-06-15T10:31:32.983
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I pronounce it as a singular Spanish 'r'. If you can pronounce Spanish, this
will help you. If not, it probably won't. Although I've often described it as
close to a 't' or 'd' sounds (as _@oren Ronen_ mentioned with 'better').
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2011-06-15T15:06:58.267
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[Tofugu video](http://www.tofugu.com/2009/12/30/how-to-pronounce-the-japanese-
r-sound/ "Tofugu") I've used.
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2011-06-17T15:07:31.343
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I found [a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUF5rAsaCKI) which shows a
shadow of the tongue position when a native speaker uses ra etc. There is also
some assistance using a Canadian English dialect which may add value.
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2018-03-14T16:28:17.377
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[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Raq0eo0znLY?t=8:33s) is the best video
I’ve found about pronouncing the Japanese r. It describes it as the sound
between d and l, and has lots of diagrams about where your tongue should be
when you say these different sounds.
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