krml Posted January 24, 2005 Report Share Posted January 24, 2005 I don't know about laziness being the reason they can't pronounce the letter 'r'. I met a group of people in Chiang Rai who couldn't pronounce it. The 'r' kept coming out as 'L'. I tried to teach them to pronounce it right but it still came out 'L'. After fifteen minutes of futility I told them they got it right. They smiled all pleased and I could only smile, shake my head, and walk away. Also the Japanese do not have 'r' in their language. Even though it is written ra,ri,ru,re,ro in Romaji. It is pronounced la,li,lu,le,lo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asdf Posted January 24, 2005 Report Share Posted January 24, 2005 The Japanese consonant isn't an r or an l (or a d, for that matter): it's an alveolar lateral flap . Hope that's clear. Plenty of English-speakers can't pronounce their r's either, you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krml Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Interesting. Learn something new everyday. I can only go by my 1.5 years of Japanese in college. You obviously have a lot more knowledge in this area. Thanks for the info. always like to learn something new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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