# L and R



## darksoda

Hey people i got a doubt about this music, i already saw a lot of singers who sing this music but i got a doubt when i saw the singers, the words  kara and tobira for example one singer, sing those words with L and the other with R who is correct ??? thank you for the answers.

Link of the musics to be more clear about this question:
xxx

xxx

if the post is confuse tell me


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## supercub

Hello!
Japanese do not distinguish L and R in general. Language experts says "ら" is neither "la" nor "ra". No wonder you have got confused with the pronunciation of these words. I think you pronounce them "ra" makes no complication with others in the conversation.


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## darksoda

Thank you thanks clear all lol i mean i Always think Japonese people Always speak the R and the Chinese Always speak the L.


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## tos1

We Japanese learn ROMAJI (Romanization of Japanese) at elementary school for better or worse. As you can easily find via net, a romaji table does not include letter "L". "ら り る れ ろ" is written as "ra ri ru re ro". And we, especially not the young, learn pronunciation of "L" at junior high school for the first time unless having a chance, but as that is not by native speakers, most of us speak "L" very badly. Recently, perhaps since about 10～15 years ago, ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) personnel have been deployed to each elementary school, then children can come into contact with world native languages.


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## Bird in a Forest

Yes, it's true that the Japanese "ら" is neither ra nor la. It's a little in between and almost sounds like there's a little bit of a "d" sound in there too. Therefore, the singers are singing a sound that is native to their own language and can't be represented using the roman alphabet. It's also why some Japanese have trouble pronouncing "r"s and "l"s in English. xxx Saying KaRA or KaLA using the English pronunciation would both sound weird to a native Japanese speaker but would still probably be understood.

As for Chinese, there exists both an r and l sound similar to the ones we use in English. Like in 弱 (ruo4) and 里 (li3).


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## Tonky

It is usually called "alveolar tap/flap".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_flap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_flap

Ask a Japanese to say "ばら" and it would usually sound exactly like American "butter".


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## 涼宮

Bird in a Forest said:


> Yes, it's true that the Japanese "ら" is neither ra nor la. It's a little in between and almost sounds like there's a little bit of a "d" sound in there too. Therefore, the singers are singing a sound that is native to their own language and can't be represented using the roman alphabet. It's also why some Japanese have trouble pronouncing "r"s and "l"s in English. xxx Saying KaRA or KaLA using the English pronunciation would both sound weird to a native Japanese speaker but would still probably be understood.
> 
> As for Chinese, there exists both an r and l sound similar to the ones we use in English. Like in 弱 (ruo4) and 里 (li3).



Nope, no 'd', that's something only an English native speaker would think of, especially using the American pronunciation in ''better'' where the 't' is a palatalized 'd' [dʲ] but it sounds similar to the soft r /ɾ/ to non-English native speakers. The Japanese /ɽ/ is just a mix between /l/ and /ɾ/ like you said. 

In Mandarin 'rou' is not pronounced as an r by most, the R is a sound similar to 's' in ''measure'' or ''vision''. The only R Mandarin has is at the end of words like èr which sounds similar to the American English r. According to Wiki saying 'rou' with /ɻ/ is done by some speakers, but the general pronunciation is /ʐ/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_retroflex_fricative . L is a very common sound in Mandarin which doesn't exist in Japanese, that's the reason why Chinese speakers are mocked by using lots of L because /r/ is an uncommon sound .

But let's not forget it is possible to pronounce the Japanese R as a trill to convey a vulgar nuance.


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## Tonky

This is really superfluous, but let me share this funny story to prove how Japanese hear this American "t" as ら行 in Japanese, and I hope none of you mind much 

James Brown, the king of funk, sang this famous tune, "Sex Machine", repeating "Get up, get on up" in it. 
It sounded like 「ゲロンパ(ゲロッパ)、ゲロロ(ゲロンナ)」to Japanese ears and many of the fans sang it like that with katakana accents for long and called him ゲロンパおやじ(or ゲロンパおじさん). 

Even more superfluous, later, in 90s, a Japanese noodle company made a TV commercial to parody this title JB gained as ゲロンパおじさん to ミソンパおじさん and paid him to sing it "ミソンパ" instead to advertise their new miso-taste noodle. I mean, this "ゲロンパ" was that famous among music fans in Japan back in the days(before this commercial). You can still find this commercial video uploaded online.


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## Cowrie

Hello, everyone!

I’m glad there are some non-native Japanese speakers who feel our ラ行音 is not “l” or “r”. 

I’m not a language expert, but I agree that ラ行音 does not belong to “l” or “r”. In my personal opinion, those three kinds of sound are just different, even though they share some similarity. Depending on how you grew up with those sounds, you perceive them differently. I believe that the same thing is true for any sound, but ラ行音 is most noticeable because many high-profile languages have two different sounds represented by two different, crystal-clear single letters (“l” and “r”), as possible counterparts. 

What I feel is that those three sounds can visually be shown as three partially overlapped circles, kind of like the five circles of the Olympic rings. 

I don’t even believe that your “l/r” sound is exactly the same as your neighbor’s “l/r” sound. I’ve recently found out that the English word “title” is spelled as “titre” in French. (I don’t know how French speakers pronounce it, though.) Also, I think I can tell a Spanish speaker from an English speaker if they say a word with “r” such as “burrito”, mainly because they pronounce “r” in their own characteristic ways. The boundaries of the sounds vary with each language, culture, group of people, and ultimately, person. 

I see the similarity between ラ行音 and the “t/d” sound as well. I know some people who sound more like they are saying ～してくらさい instead of the right pronunciation ～してください. Regarding “t”, I notice that native English speakers sometimes spell out り as “te”. It sure is close to the American soft “t” sound. 
ゲロッパ！


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## John_Doe

> the words  kara and tobira for example one singer, sing those words with L and the other with R who is correct ???



I rather wonder whether the difference in pronunciation is real when I hear, for instance, "arigatou" in one song and "aligatou" in another. I came to thinking that ら represents a more "wide" (vague) sound than 'l' or 'r'. It's between them, but more "tolerable" to variations in pronunciation, so to speak.


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