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I've chosen the name a bit at random, but for reason I don't understand I have
trouble hearing the initial r-sound on several of my male Japanese students'
names. Two examples chosen someone at random: 隆介 and 綾

They say りゅうせすけ and りょう but I hear ゆうすけ and よう

I'm a native English speaker of American English but also had experience
hearing German as a child in Germany. Is there some linguistic issue going on
here or do I just need to get my ears checked?

I saw this question: [Utterance initial
[ɾ]](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6141/utterance-
initial-%C9%BE) which explains some of the mouth position for the sound. But,
it doesn't answer what I'm asking.
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2014-05-19T09:58:53.213
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2014-05-19T11:48:38.953
2017-04-13T12:43:44.740
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question
pronunciation
Perceiving Initial r in names likes 隆介（りゅうすけ） and 綾（りょう）
For the ラ行, you are curling the tip of your tongue touching the alveolar ridge
(between 5 and 4 in the picture). There is a large gaping whole in the middle
of your mouth and the slightest build-up of pressure will "break the seal",
which means that the airflow is very small, whence the initial `r` is hardly
audible.

If you're pronouncing りゅう in the middle of a word, you can use the existing
airflow through the mouth to slam your tongue onto the alveolar ridge to
produce a more audible `r`.

(Please excuse the informal explanation, but I'm lacking vocabulary to make
this a more concise explanation.)

![alveolar
ridge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Places_of_articulation.svg)
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2014-05-19T11:29:23.160
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2014-05-19T11:48:38.953
2017-03-10T09:42:44.170
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answer