How To Pronounce The Japanese "R" Sound

[animelovingfreak]

DUDE this so helped xD

[Avizura]

My family hates me for learning Japanese :(

My family is half Indonesian so you can see why.

[Bobubobme]

@Avizura What? My family is also half indonesian and they don't have a problem with it. But my mom did marry a dutchman so they already got used to the betrayal. xD

[Kait3Bear]

I stopped being able to pronounce the R and only pronounced L...

[RockIsWhatWeNeed]

@bubushkinator lol. I wish I was .. :p

[HiddenMegalania]

damn you magic man, just kidding, it works really well i have to make my friend try this >:3 thanks you!

[JelloFlavoredSkittle]

That cat is so adorable ಠ_ಠ

[RockIsWhatWeNeed]

woow. when I was little I used to pronounce the R like that, but my parents were irritated by it so I had to stop :[ but I think it was... Ment to be? :D

[bubushkinator]

@RockIsWhatWeNeed Maybe you were Japanese when you were little?

[saturnclouds]

What I do, is I take the word sayonara, and speak it like a native japanese speaker would. then, I say, sayonara-ra-ra-ra-ra-ri-ri-ri-­ri-re-re-ru-ru-ro-ro. it make you fall into the correct sound.

[Hollow33N]

Its not hard at all like that other Guy said 10% D my ass more like 94%

[CookiiSaysRawr]

:D OMG DUDE THANK YOU SO MUCH

[Battie]

I found it so much easier when you didn't make me think so hard about it. I used to be able to do it. Thanks a lot!

[Flyer3451]

@Aunpaidintern & baka9utau Oh wow so I've been pronouncing "L" the Japanese way for 19 years[too]? I put my tongue on my upper front teeth all the time.Maybe it's because I started kinder in the Phil. Islands and Japan used to own the Philippines

[BLiNdZoRz]

"Oh umm, okay guys, here are the Hiragana letters that starts with R: Da, di, du, de, do." 10% D my ass.

[31312313131]

Is it like the greek r?That's all i can get since I'm greek xD

[baka9utau]

I'm a native english speaker. When I say 'L', I touch my tongue to the bottom of my front teeth. I can't make the 'L' sound by touching it ti the roof of my mouth. Help?

Have I seriously been doing it wrong for 19 years?

[Aunpaidintern]

@baka9utau No, I think you've been doing it right, I'm also a native English speaker. What he was trying to say was that you had to over-exaggerate the "L" sound. To over-exaggerate you have to put the top of your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Imagine having to do that all the time.

[VerryUnlikely]

tyvm :D



[Puffypandabear200]

Aww im a native spanish speaker

[Tisha701]

Thank You So Much! I can finally pronounce the Japanese 'R'

:}

[enylive]

i speak Norwegian and it was not hard at all. i think.

[Elliotize]

I've just started learning japanese so can someone tell where the "a" sound comes from in r/drl

[Merekurea]

The Japanese "r" sound never gave me any trouble. Should I feel special? As I am not a native Spanish speaker?

[MichaSin]

Hooray for being a native Spanish speaker! x'D

[ohmyarmelle]

When You said "Got It?" at 2:18, I actually nodded. *facepalm*

[Hontaish]

Native russian speaker, apparently I can actually pronounce this according to my Japanese friend xD yay!

[PharaohYami2]

I love this, thanks so much. I helps me when I try to make my UTAU voice bank.

[deev333]

Thanks so much! Been trying to work this out for ages :)

[MrDimitri3942]

'Da! Da! Da!'

'Do this about ten times.'

'dadadadadadadone'

[ThePolkadog]

Yay~ I can do it. Lol

[xLuckyStar321x]

THIS IS SO HARD!!!

[HaleStorm98]

Domo arigato gazaimasu sensei!!.

[GamerrrNerddd]

Thank you.. In my Japanese class we have to begin class in Japanese and I can never really pronounce "Rie" correctly. This helped :)

[VibezVatic]

So pretty much like the r in spanish?

[ThePolkadog]

@VibezVatic Yep. Kinda like that.

[twintowerxx]

Arigatou, Sensei!

[SyllyPickle]

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION USING A KITTY!

[ajmhdddn]

i am in grade 9 and i just found out they have Japanese in night school, but it was too late to register, i'll do it next year DX. i decided to practice some Japanese now just to have some background, so right now my only experience in Japanese is watching subbed anime XD. But there were some things that i got confused about like the time you said something that sounded like gyginhatsuown...what IS that? (sorry if i'm being annoying or ridiculous, it's just that i am VERY new at this XD).

[FlowerQuynh]

This is so hard T_T

[TheSnowSongstress]

oh my god i love you so much. This is helping so much with my UTAU <3

[Darkgurl231]

thanks this helped soo much!!!

[MewLovesChocolate]

Wait wait wait! I still can't figure this out entirely. Okay, so if you say "la" and then "da" and then put the tongue in between the la and da spot, you pronounce the r sound, correct? Because, as you say it, it kinda sounds like you are saying da, but also saying la at the same exact time, but I have no idea what to do for the r part. I'm so hopelessly confused

[heysartre]

どうもありがとう! It really helped me to understand how to pronounce the R sound!

;)

[zuoyexiongda]

"writing"というときのtは、アメリカ人なら日本語のラ­行のように発音していると思うけど

[Kimia727]

First the swedish R, then the english R then the spanish R, and now the japanese R why cant they just have the same sound, the world would become a better place!

Whenever i try to do it, i tangle up

in my tongue for some reason :o

Although i can manage it sometimes, if the R is in the middle of a word there's noway i get it correctly =/

[kanjoloid]

i just kept on doing it and then listened to the way he did it and i gave up and did it one last time then listened again and was like

OH MY GOD I DID IT

[Flamesofthunder]

Lucky i couldnt say R properly in english

[watcherofzideozeszz]

i cant do it!!!! BLARG!!!!!!!

[kittenskater]

ahaha ur kool very funny and the kitty at the end >^-^<3 i really want to learn japanese thank you

[socheata8]

So....how To Pronounce The Japanese "R" Sound?

[spatuliliana]

I am incapapble....... QAQ

[LILxJ777]

how many words are in the word Ahole in japanese i looked it up on google and i tried different sentences and saw different words like rokudenashi is that the real word for Ahole

[flyawaybutterfly1]

I don't even speak Spanish, but it's hard for me to not roll my tongue. :\

[cuppiedude20]

omg thank you so much!

[DNRaelice]

wow i totally didn't think it would work, but it actually does... Thanks a bunch!!!

[HohkehVlogs411]

Btw, I've almost got it mastered. :)

[HohkehVlogs411]

Haha. You're Awesome! Thanks for the help! :D I subscribed! :D Unfortunately, Spanish my first language so I roll my Rs lol.

[TheSleepwalker17]

this is true,Japanese R sound is a tad bit tricky,same with Spanish.White people suck at rolling their r's,lol,no offense:D

[SaintsAelric]

@TheSleepwalker17 most native spanish speakers are white people.

[TheSleepwalker17]

@SaintsAelric What's your point?

Don't tell me you're one of those racists trying to bring me down again.If you are,don't waste my time. If you aren't,I apologize for my hostile reply.

[mccrum11]

christmas sweater of shame lmfao

[wsssixteen]

Easy, humph!

[NeonFraction]

ZOMG Textfugu ad! <3 Also, this was soooooooo helpful. Thank you SO much! All my thanks!

[Eudeman]

Wow,Its really a help...I'm from Germany,and i has taken only 1 day to master ist....Thanks

[Eudeman]

Oh,and i forgot to say....:Your eyebrow is really funny.. : )

[ddrstandard2008]

@Eudeman WOOT go Germans! *high fives*

[baburo101]

So how do you say Toyota?

[stoicfan]

Can't speak it. My tongue always tightens like my north american pronunciation :(

[DemonFox369]

omfg

i could pronounce it

now i cant

[KayleeLoves]

Spanish OR Dutch.

[arbide3]

FUCKING GREAT!

[DarkAngel63725267]

Now try to pronounce the Spanish R haha

[anaco654]

@DarkAngel63725267 Spanish R is the same as Japanese R.

I know. Spanish is my native language.

[Ezullof]

Yes, for example in "caro". We can also find this sound in: Arabic, Basque, Dutch, English (ex: three), Sicilian, Turkish, etc... But really there is no "10% d" in that sound. Perhaps the author of the video says that because the air passes near the teeth?

[gateaudesanges]

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!

I should pay you for this!!!

[zackfair73195]

I already knew how to since I am a huge Death Note fan. Ahhhh, Kira.

[TheVanillaMoon]

@zackfair73195 xD your comment made me giggle... who says you can't learn japanese watching anime xD

[GlaciesEra]

yaay 4 being in the 10% :D

[ArturoYamashita]

Because, Japanese clear ラリルレロ sound is close to La, Li, Lu, Le, Lo. That's wrong who put R romaji for ラリルレロ. This is never with rounded R sound. In Japanese, L is pronounced as EL (エル). R is pronounced as A-L, AAL or AL (アール). Never like Eru or A-ru. However, Japanese La, Li, Lu, Le, Lo sound isn't like European L sound as well. Japanese ラ is 3/4 Version of European La. But never with R.

[Kari166]

It's really not that hard, guys! XD

Then again a few of my family members are Japanese/can speak it, so, maybe I picked something up.

[Kari166]

It's kind of like, touching the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth/back of your teeth, right?

[MrVaoy]

SHEEYA!!! I FOUND A BETTER WAY! MAKE A D SOUND LIKE DA BUT SLIDE YOU TOUNGE DOWN THE ROOVE OF YOUR MOUTH SAY YOU MAKE THE SOUND LIKE DU

[Gabrielandpals]

I'm in the 10% kinda. I am Mexican but I speak English better than I can

do my Spanish and I can't roll my r's.I'm a shame!

[valkerya11]

I can do it..WOW..I should learn japanese... XD

[Panascrew]

Agg I can't say it I'm Urdu so I'd pronounce it Jd Jo or dr dlr agg

[nekoraba]

My R sounds like a D lol I can't say it with an L >__<

[Erikachan512]

I'm already japanese (: I speak it fluently. Haha. I love the way you explain it. Its so creative. Did you already go over tsu yet? (:

[TREEGOBLIN]

*sigh* There's clearly no hope for me... I'm a native english speaker and I can't roll Rs, I only learnt to pronounce TH/F sounds in english a few years back and I say Ds and Ls in exactly the same place right behind my teeth (no one thinks I sound weird though)...

[cyberlord64]

I was in the living room wearing my earphones when i was watching this video and i kinda forgot that i was not alone so i started repeating ra la ra la ra la just to see what it is you were talking about. I then turned around and saw my family staring at me... That was embarrassing...

[theanimegirl02]

@cyberlord64 lol! XD that's why I'm always in my room where no one can see me and my embarrassing moments :D....yeah....I have no friends ;)

[mavenger3000]

PHONETICS IS THE ANSWER!!!! ...

[TrademarkFTW]

I'm not sure why I'm watching this.  Its mildly entertaining tho...

[MrSnoozable]

Also if your a native Hindi speaker. (you said Spanish but there are others . . .)

[hector0282]

Cool I'm a native Spanish speaker too, and I can master this "R" sound easily. I speak Spanish, English and soon, ...Japanese!

[femmefatale1990]

@hector0282 LOL! So am I! I don't think I'm bad at it when pronouncing the Japanese R...in fact, and this may sound cocky, but I think I'm pretty great at it for a first-timer XD

[hector0282]

@femmefatale1990

Yeah I concur ...to be honest, I used to believe Japanese language would be totally different in sound to what I already knew, as a type of..."alien" tongue. LOL BUT, now I come to know that it's easier to pronounce than, a germanic language such as English, that I already master.

[LuckyNeko123]

???

I guess I'm wierd, but it's the 'ao' sound I have trouble with currently(the R sound is easy for me). I have a bit of a Chinese accent, though. So that may have helped me with the R...

[BLiNdZoRz]

I'll stick to rolling my Rs...

[FairyGothMother88]

very cool i have a friend who was born in the state but moved to japan when she was 2 so japaneesee was her first language she has been trying to teach it to me but i dont get to see her very often and your lessons are really helping thank you i hope to one day move to japan and be able to talk to the people

[stevenriachi]

u suck -_-

[fluffyxoreox]

@stevenriachi ass -.-

[saifsyed42]

@stevenriachi you go suck his dick

why the fuck are you seeing this video?

[xcess7]

Reminds me of Amir from Hardly Working

[samtastic517]

Im a native spanish speaker and its hard for me not to roll my R when doing this!!!! HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

[1234luvin]

@samtastic517 Me to!

[masada2342]

muhahahah im a native spanish speaker!

[nachogarciaf1]

@masada2342 xDDDD me too

[iamnotokay24]

LLOL I love your cat xD and this is extremely helpful! :D

[xoxPinkei2xox]

My mom was looking at me when i was doing this..It felt akward..>=./

[MistikaManiac]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! im gunna have trouble pronouncing my own name! ryan...rrrrr.....rryan.....FRU­CK! lol fail

[girl4anime]

Hey big fan and yes, I'm in the 10% haha. But as a linguistics (as well as Japanese!) major, this video kind of makes me cringe. It could be really helpful! But I want to emphasize, this is NOT a proper explanation of articulation as the english "D" and "L" are not just slightly positioned differently. Also to people saying it's like "soda" and "kitty", sorry folks that's a different noise than the Japanese "R"! (Technically speaking) Whatever helps you though.

[Luchia789987]

I love japan. <3

[mycayla525]

DAMN IT DDNT HELP :(

[stabbyripstabstab666]

i cant do ittttttttttttttttttttt wahhhhhh

[mashedup1987]

Thanks mate I'm sure this'll be a big help with some practice. Keepin this vid well and truly "bookmarked".

Otherwise I'll be walking round arashiyama next year sounding like a russian. da!

[Johnnybomb1]

I think the Japanese r sound is actually quite easy.On the other hand I find the Spanish trilled r sound far easier to get tongue tied in a sentence.Native English speaker.

[crjatin4012]

so how do you pronunce rya, ryu, and ryo??? do u do it the same way as ra, ru, and ro????

[PurpleSparkle2007]

I'm in the 10% group XD Still, this was very helpful! Thank you :)

[TheK54]

who needs Japanese? ENGLISH rule

[sandorsbox]

@TheK54 Well, when you master English, let us know. I think you meant "Who" with a capital W, and "English Rules" with an s at the end, not to mention folllowing it up with a period. As an English major pre-law student, I've learned that English is one of the stupidest languages on the planet. If I hadn't grown up with it as my native tongue, I'd never bother trying to learn it. I'm proud as I coudl be to be an American with my western culture and everything, but English is a dumb language.

[guitaro321]

You're incredible! :DD

[Ipodcandy]

I was like "I never had trouble with the r sound... "

-Native Spanish Speaker :)

[Rubyluna07]

this video sucked like poo this dose not teach you anything am i right put thumbs up if you think am right ;] ;] ;]

[JMmaxx1]

im in the 10% 

[krystalfox007]

Holy crap! I can't believe that worked... O_o

[crjatin4012]

Wow man thanks...I finally got the hang of it.

[IMaPepsiPerson2]

It would be interesting to hear Lady Gaga's song Bad Romance with the Japanese 'r' sound. "Ra, ra, ra-a-ah-a. Roma, roma-ma. Gaga, oo-la-la...."

[MrSuperfrogy]

i did it in 2 sec lol

[Animalluver784523488]

Cool and thanks!

[Heollin]

Eh, it's not that hard! But that's maybe because I'm a musican and a flutist in addition xD But that was a GREAT tutorial! Yay!!! I'm gonna learn Japaneese *squeek* ^^''

[dannysuru]

you should teach people how to say the "りゃ / りゅう / りょう"　sounds!

those took me about 2 weeks hard practice!

[MrSkateboardbassplay]

私は10％の日本人です

[Em3raldTiger]

I have to say, this was very helpful! After doing it for a while, it starts to feel very "natural"... I nail it down pretty fast. Arigatou gozaimasu!

[groundhoghunter6]

Holy shit! Holy shit!! Holy shit!!! he taught his freaken cat to speak japanese im definitaly buying this text fugu thing it seems to be increadable... ima teach it to my husky and feret then ill lurn it myself and we can all comunicate in a secret language to most strangers thx so much!!!

P.S. does that cool "commercial time christmas sweater vest of shame" come with the text fugu or does that cost extra cause i wanna rock that all summer long!

[TurnRightAround]

Yay im part of the 10% spanish ^^

[HumbleOtaku]

this is cool, i love it! thank you!

p.s. i'm an otaku and i'm spanish. very random.

[siverfanweedo]

OMG i knew them all :3

and i barly speck

japnes

;A; omg ran ran ru did it

[siverfanweedo]

OMG i knew them all :3

and i barly speck

japnes

[lotharleopard]

Actually in spanish soundslike a "r" single not a "rr" and in english sounds lime the "soda" or the "r" of "zora" hahah

[patolintubo]

NO CAXE NI UNA WEA, PERO CUANDO CHICO ME DECIAN EL CHINO. OYE PORQUE LLORABA EL BREA, PARECE QUE COMIA PURO ARROZ.

[brownboy252]

actually that's not true that english people aren't used to the japanese "r" sound, we actually make that sound all the time like in the word "soda" , "kittie", etc, we just do it with diff vowel sounds and only when we mesh words together. i'll make a video response to show what i mean.



[genuinebbuck]

I always check this to make sure that I didn't teach myself out of doing it XD

[granjenal15]

im hispanic!

[iAznCwalk8]

thanx man that was useful ;D

[paddyanouk]

I'm dutch, and I have a rolling R, like the jaoanese street guys saying ano nyaro!! or something. but this helped me to change my R. arigatou!!!!!!

[LatinCarito1]

when he said the 90% R fact. i was like :( but when he said the other 10% fact. i was like :D lol

[ser89ers]

if you're italian, it's the easiest :)

[RawrzzzxTocixRainbow]

I must be secretly Spanish,....

I didn't have a problem with it before.

xD

[starlitblur]

OMG!!!! Thanks!!! Very helpful!! ^_^

[nijinoparetto2]

This is actually really helpful. O_O Now let's see if my professor will pick on my pronunciation again! >=D

[TokyoKami]

I want that christmas sweater vest of shame :D

[sfiveo13]

kitty at the end! <3

but awesome video! this helps me soo much. :3

[AnvilRTX]

i fail.

[Eric858]

La li lu le lo is what I go by. Heck I don't care I pronounce things. I've given up hope because no matter what I can't pronounce cantonese properly> Lei hei sui ga!!!!!! And I suck with mandarin too! T_T Your good! Are you japanese yourself? half japanese. A lot of people don't sound japanese when they learn. (in highschool) ehh You'll probably not answer because you don't check your email because its filled with these comment things. Why am I even wasting my time on this comment...

[RozenStar]

XD lol I'm in the 10% Spanish native speaker

[dangerpanda69]

epic sweater and this is helpful but im still having trouble doing the r's but im sure i'll get it thnx for the help

[luvmypup93]

HAHA IM A NATIVE SPANISH SPEAKER! I am the other 10% :P

[UNR3S7]

It is so hard to pronounce ryu :(

[123japanesecom]

@UNR3S7 . Yes it is! A lot of people have trouble with it, its almost as if the sound doesn't come out eh.

[max1122ism]

that was sooooo easy!

[kemushichan]

Another way it's taught (the Japanese 'r" isn't one uniform sound) is for those of you who can roll R's, to "ROLL" the a R, but only once. This explanation doesn't help people who can't roll R's of course, but it makes me wink at those 10% of Spanish speakers ;). (PS: The Japanese R is conventionally called an "alveolar flap", aka a single-roll or "flap" of the rolled R) :)

[Gamorra]

Thank you for this video and for the linguistic articulation.

[WiggaMachiavelli]

You suck, bro. My pronunciation is pretty much perfect, and your bad, bad advice was just plain wrong.

[kelvinella]

basically japanese ra = la

[hotamali]

@kelvinella only its sort of a plosive l

[yoh7351]

@kelvinella I love how you just skipped the whole video and went to the comments.

[Acinonyxxxx]

Thumbs up if you already mastered it. :D (Not that Koichi-san's video isn't awesomely helpful :3)

[sunshine7018c]

Qué?! ... da di du de do hahahaha

como d con la punta de la lengua en el inicio del paladar.... casi como decir "dududu" a un bebé!

[W81HotPotLickin2nd]

i'm part of the 10%, but i'm just a japanese prodigy.

[kingecua15]

did you learn english? your english is pretty good.. i want to learn japanese JUST AS GOOD as your english. so i can watch anime without pausing to read subtitle lol and i plan to live in japan in 3 or 4 years from now thats why

[123japanesecom]

@kingecua15 He is native English speaker.

[Delory84]

Great explanation!

[Delory84]

Great explenation! :-)

[yeabudie745]

LOL I just started laughing at the christmas sweater! But im in Japanese 1 and this helped me out alot! Thx!

[acidcloud]

Yay for being Spanish xD

[dfpaction]

to practice start here:

ra = 0:56

Interesting, I hear it described differently all the time. I've found that being able to roll your R's really helps, because it's almost the exact same muscle movement.  Even now, I have problems with the potential forms e.g., 信じられない, but only when I'm speaking En