What letter can't Japanese pronounce?
Most Westerners who come into contact with Japanese people first wonder why they can't seem to pronounce R's and L's. Those who are around them more often tend to observe that they actually can pronounce them, but they always mix them up.
There's a simple reason why Japanese people can't pronounce R and L correctly. They don't exist in Japanese. It is not, as was asked of me once, a genetic defect. Japanese people who spent their childhood years in an English speaking country can pronounce both sounds fine.
To make "r" sound, start to say "l", but make your tongue stop short of the roof of your mouth, almost in the English "d" position. It is more like the Spanish "r". The Japanese have trouble to pronounce and tell the difference between the English "r" and "l' because these sounds don't exist in Japanese.
There is no L sound in Japanese, so they opt for the nearest sound they can manage, which is the Japanese R, a sound that English natives find it hard to master, and nothing like L at all in how it is articulated. The Japanese R approximates the English one but with a click, a tongue tap against the hard palate.
- 侵略。 – invasion.
- 便利。 – Convenient.
- 出力。 – Output power.
- 店員。 – Clerk.
- 旅行。 – Traveling.
- 暖かくなかった。 – Was not warm.
- 駐車場。 – Parking lot.
- おっちょこちょい。 – Clumsy.
Since the Japanese “voiceless bilabial fricative” (see, I told you that you'd get these by the end!) is actually quite rare among languages, the “f” pronunciation problem unfortunately goes both ways – it hinders Japanese speakers trying to learn English too, and so “f” can come out sounding more like “h”, leading to ...
Actually, the Japanese "r" is a cross between the English "r" and "l", and quite interestingly, it winds up sounding close to a "d"!! The sound "r" is made by lightly flicking the tip of your tongue against the ridge behind your upper teeth, a bit farther back that when saying "d".
It varies from person to person, so some may pronounce it like the English "v", but others may use a strong "b" sound. Originally, Japanese had no ヴ character so they used variations of ビ (bi).
The reason for this is that unlike English and many other languages, Japanese sentence structure inverts the common word order many of us are familiar with. The good news is that Japanese sentence structure is very consistent. So once you get used to the “backward” word order, it quickly becomes second nature.
“yi” and “ye” sounds don't exist in modern Japanese. There is also no “L” block of syllables in Japanese. Instead, you will find that in many words borrowed from English, in Japanese pronunciation and katakana writing, it has become replaced by a very light “r” sound.
Why do Japanese say WWW?
The use of wwww to represent laughing comes from the Japanese wara (笑), “to laugh.” With the rise of text-messaging and the internet in the 1990s–2000s, Japanese users adapted the kanji 笑 to denote laughter, similar to LOL.
The Japanese sound is more of a cross between the English R and L, so it's very difficult to distinguish the two, hence Engrish. A proper hard R is actually just as difficult to pronounce as an L for Japanese speakers, and the hardest words to pronounce are those with both sounds (for example, parallel).
While the “R” is in the same position but with the tongue allowed to drop a little so that it “floats” ever so slightly below the palate. The Asian “R” becomes an “L” simply by touching the palate with the tongue. That's why L and R sound so similar to our Western ears – because they are very similar.
A funny phrase in japanese is “toragahitowokamoutosurutokinounarinow” 虎が人を噛もうとするときのうなり声。 It is 37 letters long and is comprised of a 17 syllables. It is a very odd phrase, as it is defined as “the growl a tiger makes when it is about to about to bite someone”.
たいと(taito) is the most difficult Japanese Kanji on the record with a total of 84 strokes. It is formed by combining 3 雲 (くもkumo) with 3 龍 (りゅうRyuu).
Heiwa (平和), the Japanese word for peace, may refer to: Heiwa, Aichi, a town in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
When you first begin to learn Japanese you are taught that Japanese has no stress and each syllable should be pronounced equally. You also learn that certain vowels are not pronounced, or only pronounced very slightly, such as the "u" in "desu" and the "i" in "deshita".
The Japanese alphabet actually contains fewer letters than the English alphabet! When Romanizing Japanese (that is, writing Japanese words with English letters, also called romaji), you will only use the vowels a, i, u, e, o. And you'll use these consonants: k, g, s, z, j, t, d, n, h, f, b, p, m, y, r, w.
| Romaji | Pronunciation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| KI | “kee” | “Key” |
| KU | “koo” | “Coo” |
| KE | “keh” | “Ke” in “ketchup” |
| KO | “koh” | “Co” in “Coat” |
Many Japanese speakers have difficulty pronouncing the English consonant sounds /l/,/r/, /f/,/v/ & 'th'. Japanese has only 5 vowel sounds. English has 20. English long & double vowels are often challenging. Word stress is often flatter and more even than an English native speaker.
Can Japanese pronounce V?
It varies from person to person, so some may pronounce it like the English "v", but others may use a strong "b" sound. Originally, Japanese had no ヴ character so they used variations of ビ (bi).
This means that Japanese people cannot make a stand-alone “m” sound or “p” sound, as in the English letters, without practice. Why? Because they don't exist in Japanese. Therefore, consonants (i.e., a linguistic concept that doesn't exist in Japanese) are only ever used with the five vowel sounds (a, i, u, e, o).
“R” and “L” Sounds
The English “r” sound doesn't exist in Japanese. Many times, students will swap in an “l” sound, which is ironic because when an “l” sound occurs in an English word they often pronounce it as: “ru”, “ro”, “ra”, “re”, or “ri”.
「ふ」 is the only sound that is pronounced with a “f” sound, for example 「ふとん」 (futon) or 「ふじ」 (Fuji). That's fine in Japanese because there are no words with other “f” sounds such as “fa”, “fi”, or “fo”.
In standard Japanese, 'h' before 'i' or 'y' is pronounced a bit differently (source). In the International Phonetic Alphabet, this sound is written as [ç]. This is the sound you're hearing as kinda like a し. However, it's still distinct from し (which is pronounced as [ɕ]).
Because the number of phoneme in Japanese is much fewer than English and the syllable structure is much simpler. It's very hard for most Japanese to pronounce English words. It is the same as native English speakers find difficulty in pronouncing French guttural r and Chinese retroflex consonants.