# ん [n] before らりるれろ



## Reicheru

I have a lot of trouble pronouncing らりるれろ if ん [n] is pronounced beforehand. For instance, I can't pronounce the word べんり properly.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks


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## YangMuye

The n actually sounds like a nasal i or e in the word benri.
The r after n usually sounds like l.


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## Tonky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#The_moraic_nasal_.2F.C9.B4.2F

By the way, "らりるれろ" in Japanese is called "Alveolar flap" or "Alveolar lateral flap", and it is different from "r" or "l". It sounds more like "D" to many English speakers. (Not sure how it sounds to Chinese native speakers.)
It sounds like the <t> part of "bu*tt*er" in American English.


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## YangMuye

The r generally sounds like l to most Chinese natives., unless they are trained. 

But the r in Japanese is not always flap. e.g., the r at the beginning of a word or after n is less likely to flap.

I sometimes think some speakers’ r really sounds like d in the beginning of a word.


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## Tonky

Hm, would you rather like to call it "tap" than "flap"?
It is a synchronic lenition, but I might think so only because I'm native


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## YangMuye

I myself can't distinguish taps and flaps in any case, so I don't know if there is any difference. I would treat them the same.
Lenition? well, don't you think the /l/-like or /d/-like sound is much stronger than than the flap /r/?
I often mistook the initial /r/ and sometimes middle /r/s for /d/ when I hear a word I don't know.


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## Tonky

YangMuye said:


> Lenition? well, don't you think the /l/-like or /d/-like sound is much stronger than than the flap /r/?


What do you mean by "stronger" there?

Either way, I believe English speakers hear sounds differently from Chinese speakers, as I have never heard of any English natives claiming Japanese /r/ sounds like /l/ in English, and I have only seen Japanese, Chinese and Koreans claiming that. I do not find it reasonable to say "sounds like xx" without showing a decent example along when your native tongues are not in the similar group.


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## YangMuye

Tonkyさん、説明の仕方が悪かったですね。失礼しました。

私がよく聞いている「ｌ」「ｄ」らしい「ｒ」は、確かに存在していると思います。
弾き音のｒと比べて、閉鎖の持続時間が明らかに長いように聞こえます。
「ｄ」ほどではないが、破裂がはっきりと聞こえることがよくあります。

私の感じでは、/dl/ではないかと思います。ここの/dl/は、二つの子音ではなく、「ɖ͡ʐ」のような発音のし方です。
また、単に「ｌ」のように聞こえることもあります。

いずれにせよ、普通の「ｒ」より苦労する発音のし方で、「lenition」とは思いません。辞書やアニメなど、ゆっくりはっきり言うときに、特に現れやすいのです。

イントラネットで研究や論文などいろいろ探しましたが、残念ながら、私の主張をサポートするのが見つかりませんでした。

ウィッキペディアでは、次のような記述があるのですが、多少は参考になるでしょう。



> 歯茎側面接近音とは子音の種類の一つ。舌端と歯茎で舌の中央に閉鎖を作り、舌の両脇から空気を通すことによって生じる音。国際音声字母では [l] と書く。
> …
> 日本語 - 「ん」の後にくるら行の子音でしばしば用いられる。





> 日本語
> 「ら行」の子音は、語頭では [d] に似て、それよりも閉鎖の緩い破裂音である[34]。英語の [l] に近い音を用いる話者もある。適当な音声記号はないが、有声そり舌破裂音の [ɖ] で代用することもある[35]。一方、「あらっ？」というときのように、語中語尾に現れる場合は、舌をはじく [ɾ] もしくは [ɽ] となる。





> ら
> 現代標準語の音韻: 1子音と1母音からなる音 /ra/。舌の先で上歯茎付近をはじくことによる有声子音/r/とあからなる音。国際音声記号で語中の子音/r/は歯茎はじき音[ɾ]で記述される。語頭の/r/は接触の持続時間がやや長く、度合いは弱いが破裂音[d]に近くなる。個人によっては側面接近音が現われる。これを記述できる適当な記号がなく、記述も多様になるが、便宜上、語頭・語中とも[ɾ]とすることが多い。



こういうように説明して、いかがでしょうか。


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## Tonky

個人差の問題もあるかもしれませんね。地方的なこともあるのか、私のまわりには英語の/l/に近い発音をする人は残念ながら見当たりません。ただ、「ラーメン」とかだと近い発音をしつつも自分では気がついていない可能性はありますね。（今日何人か「便利」を読ませてみましたが、歯茎(そり舌)はじき音に近い発音に聞こえます(Google翻訳ページの音声で聞こえるような音です)ので、英語話者には/d/に聞こえるでしょうね。）

ちなみに私、子供の頃合唱をやっていまして、当時大会用に「ら行」を「美しく響かせるため」(先生の言葉)と、/l/の特訓をさせられたことがあります。歌などでは、響きのために故意に/l/を使うことがありますが、普段の会話ではどうなんでしょう？！　ここらへんNativeはどうしても聞き飛ばす癖があるので、私も確かなことは・・・。ただ、一つ言えることは、いまだかつて英語話者の方に「/l/に似た音」に聞こえると言われたことは一度もないんですね。(まあ、昔から"Coca Cora"とか、最近では"impossiburu"のイメージが強いせいもあるでしょう。）



> いずれにせよ、普通の「ｒ」より苦労する発音のし方で、「lenition」とは思いません。辞書やアニメなど、ゆっくりはっきり言うときに、特に現れやすいのです。


そうですか。またできるだけ注意して他人の発音を観察してみますが、つまり、「ほ」のかわりに「ぽ」（にほんとにっぽん）を使うように、強調するときに使われるという意味であっていますか？　私たち日本人にはどのVariantもすべて同じ「ら行」に過ぎず、前後のつながりで舌が経済的な動きをしてるだけなのですが。強調で使われているということは、もともとの音が/l/に近くあるべきで、そのほかのラ行がlenitionにすぎない、という、そういう発想なのでしょうね。


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## Firewall

what about りょく？If I try to say it repeatedly like りょくりょくりょくりょくりょくりょくりょくりょくりょく,
it starts turning into ろく,
and sometimes when I try to say words like にゅうりょく it comes out as にゅうろく

...is this a common thing or is it just me?


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## YangMuye

The r in 便利 from google sounds like ben?i to me, where the n is a nasal stop and the ? sound like a combination of d and l.

I don't have a computer or laptop on my hand now. I just used my iPad to listen a dictionary's pronunciations, and find most r after n and at the beginning of a word is what I said 「ｌ」「ｄ」らしい「ｒ」.
The only word I found sounding like /l/ in that dictionary is 了解. I can't hear any clear release burst, which a characteristic of r or d.
The ん before らりるれろ in that dictionary is sometimes a stop /n/ and sometimes a normal ん(nasal vowel). When it is a normal ん, the r following it seems usually a normal flap r.
I will do more research on it.
The 「ｌ」「ｄ」らしい「ｒ」 might be resembled as [ɖˡ]. It starts with a retroflex stop and end with a lateral approximant.
The only essential difference between the closure duration of /dl/ is long while /r/ is just an instant.
The moving of tongue is also different.  With /dl/, you manual control your tongue to stop and release the airflow.
With /r/, there is only one smooth movement.
So you can hold the closure with /dl/, which makes it suit better as an initial consonant.

I'm not an expert in phonetics, so I don't know if my usage of ɖ and ˡ is correct or not.
Since I don't have sounds like flaps, voiced stops or lateral released stops in my first tongue, I will treat them different as far as I can tell the difference.
People have these sounds in their mother tongues may think they are the same though.



> つまり、「ほ」のかわりに「ぽ」（にほんとにっぽん）を使うように、強調するときに使われるという意味であっていますか？


いいえ。怒る時に「なに？」を唇を丸くして/nɒny/のように発音したり、語頭に現れる[d]を無声音(VOT≒0)の[t]のように発音したり、こういうような、ある条件で現れるvariantと思います。


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## vampirodolce

Hi everyone!
I've been studying Japanese for a couple of months and I've come across a situation that my Japanese friends are unable to explain.

Basically, I need some clarification about the pronunciation of ら り る れ ろ, because it seems to be inconsistent and vary between a very strong R (similar to an Italian R) and L.

Whatever these sounds are, I can clearly hear words where the same hiragana is pronounced differently.

My friends are unable to help because they consider it to be the same sound... actually, it looks like they don't really know what 'R' and 'L' are: they write 'yogult' (yogurt), 'have a lest' (have a rest), etc. Two of them lived in Italy for over a year but still can't use R and L properly, by their own admission.

My concern is not that the Japanese find it difficult to distinguish between words such as right/light, correct/collect, etc, these things happen if you are not used to certain sounds.

My concern is that the Japanese actually pronounce either a very strong R (much stronger than the English R) or an L according to something I am unable to understand.

A few examples should clarify what I mean.

This is a sample song to show you the difference in pronunciation:






1'09" - てくれよ te ku LE yo
1'26" - だから da ka RA
3'28" - きてる ki te RU
3.45" - ありの - a LI no

I'm doing a course to learn Japanese, これ is always pronounced 'kore' by native speakers, not 'kole'.

If someone knows what Ranma 1/2 is, Ranma is always called 'LAnma' in the Japanese version, not RAnma.

I'm confused, because the romaji translitteration always uses 'R' to represent those sounds, but that’s not true.

So... my question is: one hiragana, two sounds? And what should I do if I find a new word in Japanese, say xyzらxyz, should the ら be pronounced 'RA' or should I read it 'LA'?

I hope someone can shed some light on this.

ありがとう ございます!!


Video  file approved by Flaminius.


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## karlalou

Hi.
I find myself pronouncing those syllables of ら行 in くれ, から, きてる, あり, or これ all tapping the palate near the teeth with the flapping tongue. I never pronounce them like R nor L.


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## vampirodolce

Hi,
first of all, thank you for your quick response. It's not easy to understand what you mean by 'tapping the palate near the teeth with the flapping tongue'. Would that sound like the American English 't' in 'better', 'party'?
But the 'L' sounds in the video I posted above (1'09", 3.45") do not sound like that at all; and in any case they sound very different from the other two examples (1'26", 3'28").

If it interests you, I have asked my friend from Kyoto lo listen to some tricky words one more time and she finally seems to have understood what the problem is (luckily, because my other friends did not even believe me).

Her answer is:
-maybe we use two different pronunciations with a single character but without realizing it
-so we believe there is no difference

And then I asked if it would be wrong to read the word ライオン (らいおん) as RAion instead of LAion; she said 'they wouldn't notice, even if you pronounce it badly'.

Basically it seems that the Japanese do not differentiate between R and L and consider the two sounds as slight variations of each other, maybe because both of them are represented by the same kana.

We (those who use the alphabet) are puzzled because we call those two small variations 'R' and 'L'.

What is your opinion on this?


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## karlalou

I can pronounce ラ of ライオン with the tip of tongue touching at the upper teeth but that is the English 'L' pronunciation. Japanese ラ is pronounced with tapping the palate near the teeth with the tip of flapping tongue. The tongue is moved *very* quickly tapping the palate. Flicking the palate with the tip of tongue. It's not at all like English R or L. The sound might be closer to T than R or L.

ok. It's closer to L than R in my opinion.
However, Japanese ら行 never possible to pronounce with showing the tip of tongue between upper and lower teeth while English L can do that. (Sorry, I don't know anything about Italian except they are so good at food and art…

After trying and pronouncing so many times even Japanese would confused and might find it's possible to pronounce らりるれろ like L, but that is English L pronunciation. Well.. I don't know if some Japanese or some area of Japan might really pronouncing らりるれろ by touching the tip of tongue at the upper teeth.

No, you can't even say らりるれろ smoothly if pronouncing them like English L.

OK. So I can say that when you master to say らりるれろ very fast, that's the time you know Japanese pronunciation of them. 

ps: I'm getting trained to say らりるれろ fast with L pronunciation. lol
Well, still, らりるれろ are not soft sounds like R or L. They are crisp sounds like explosive sounds of made by P.


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