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I’m having so much trouble with the “ra” sound, or any other r sound in Japanese total. I’ve tried all the steps, but it doesn’t sound right, and I have no idea when or if I’m doing it right at all. I want to get this right. Suggestions, please? How did you master this sound? Thanks to anyone that helps.
Howdy,
I’m afraid that I haven’t mastered it either. No matter what I couldn’t get the L/R combo sound. I finally just fell back on the rolled R I learned for Spanish. It’s probably going to get me into trouble soon, but until I can hear a LOT more examples of it in use, I don’t think I can get it any closer.
Z-man
Don’t worry too much, as long as it doesn’t sound like a really strong “ra” as if you’re about to say “rapunzel” I don’t think many Japanese people will have a tough time understanding it. I’ve heard quite a lot of Japanese people pronounce it with more of an “r” sound than others too.
Plus it’s probably one of those things that you will slowly adapt to once you listen to more and more Japanese media.
AnonymousSay “La” quickly and you can cheat it. But in the end if you keep saying it the best you can, overtime it’ll get better.
I found this useful as another tool:
The Water Method: How to Pronounce the Japanese R in Minutes
http://www.xamuel.com/water-method/
The “R” sound is tough.
That post by Altaira is a good resource. It is very similar to the sound in English sometimes referred to as a ‘flapped t” sound. If you are a native English speaker (unfortunately not British English) you should be familiar with this sound. British English speakers tend to enunciate their ‘t’s “properly” where as North American English uses the ‘flapped t’ sound quite often. butter, batter, water, waiter, putter, etc…
The idea (as it has been probably been beaten to death) is for your tongue to lightly flick the roof of your mouth. Whereas the ‘L’ sound in English begins with the tongue touching the rook of your mouth and is flicked forwards off of the roof towards the front of your mouth. Hence why some people recommend making the ‘L’ sound many times in succession quickly to understand the movement.
Anyways, practice makes perfect.
I just try to make it more close to the ‘d’ sound than the r sound. Like the T in Water was a good example. Practice the “Ra” with focusing on a d sound, rather than an r
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