How To Pronounce The Japanese “R” Sound

30. Dec, 2009 View Comments

I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas (if that’s what you celebrate), full of Christmas Cake and KFC. Yum! Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra raaaa!

One of the things that almost every Japanese learner has trouble with (if they’re a native English speaker), is the Japanese “R” sound. More specifically: Ra, ri, ru, re, & ro. Often times, it just ends up being a straight-up “R” sound, which is wrong, or some weird hybrid version of the sound that “L” makes when it’s on the toilet. It’s kind of sad, but very few people have “cracked” the Japanese “R” sound. A good 90% of people have trouble with this, and I’m going to flip that statistic on it’s head. After going through this lesson, 90% of you will be able to pronounce the Japanese R sound perfectly.

How To Do The Japanese “R”

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Until a linguist friend told me about these steps, I was able to do the “R” sound, but it was difficult to explain in a way that most people could understand and see results. How did you do? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Better? The same? Worse (I hope not).

Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra!

Related posts:

  1. Japanese Language Cheatsheet for Travelers
  2. How To Pronounce The Japanese “R”
  3. Alternatives to Rosetta Stone Japanese (i.e. Should I buy Rosetta Stone?)

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  • Hi! Just caught your video and I found it very helpful. One question: you mentioned that being of Spanish descent might make the Japanese R easier to pronounce, but is it just because they're similar? They sound different to me, and yet I find myself using them interchangeably. I know that's not exactly right. Advice?
  • steph
    I pronounce it with the "dd" sound in ladder... dunno if that's right xD
  • Vince
    the japanese "r" sound came easy for me, since my first language was spanish. There are 2 "r"s in spanish, the r sound in "roberto" and the double "rr", or rolling r" in the word "Carro" or car in english.
  • Timbit
    This video explains where to put your tongue, but i am wondering, what motion are we to make with the tongue/ "air movement?" With the L, the tongue does all the work. With a D, the air kind of pushes or "bursts" against/on the tongue. For an R, the tongue curves a bit while moving. I don't know if my explanation is too weird, but i think i need to know what kind of tongue movement is happening when making the sound.
  • jenny
    this is great! thx much for sharing.
  • JackiJinx
    Maybe I'm just odd, but I don't find the 'R' sound so hard anymore, but the 'fu' and 'bu' sounds drive me mad. No one understand me when I try to say たぶん @___@
  • Velleos
    I reply late. Very late. I was referring to the "n" sound as some books say to pronounce it. Without your tongue, with the sound made in your throat. I use my tongue anyways, though.
  • Cass
    Thank god my dad pushed me to learn Spanish at home. Now I have to push myself to learn Japanese.
  • caughtredhanded
    Soooo, I'm way late in making a comment here, but great lesson! Managed to master this sound quite a while back, but never known how to explain it to somebody else. Now it would appear that the veil has been lifted - great work! Whoop!
  • ishika
    ok I m whole new to this Japanese Learning Culture But I have been trying this since long. I am like half Japanese girl. I never bothered to learn or know about Japan but recently I m in a kinda love with Japanese culture and all. I wanna learn Japanese. I am reading ur website to see how I can start learning Japanese.
    For this I need atleast one japanese Friend.
  • Finding Japanese friends / language partners -> http://lang-8.com

    Though, usually this requires you to know a little bit of Japanese, first.

    *cough* http://textfugu.com *cough*

    Or, if you want some other suggestions I'd be happy to point you around.
  • Ysuke
    Thanks for the review. I actually felt confident in pronouncing the Japanese "R" before, but this is helpful. I'll think of it as a safety net just in case I get rusty. I'm bound to when I'm surrounded by idiots who say "ching-chong" when making fun of the Japanese and weeboos that try watching anime with English subtitles and 5 minutes later say "MY BRAIN HURTS" and go to the dub. Yes, Koichi. I know watching anime with English subtitles is not an effective learning strategy. It's purely for entertainment. I'd rather see a German film in German, a French film in French, etc. So obviously I'd rather see any type of Japanese movie or TV show in Japanese. Sorry, but I had to clarify that and I know how much you hate it when people use anime to learn Japanese. So, thanks again.
  • Jaksa
    140 comments on YouTube
  • justin
    Only 8 comments??????
  • haha, did that text get you to comment?
  • where did you get the sweet t-shirt?
  • I think that one was from FastMac
  • Koichi, you WIN! This is the best explanation ever! Seriously! I e-mailed this to my linguistics prof!

    yaaay <3 linguistics <3
  • Joyce
    Great explanation, Koichi. That whole "They get their r's and l's mixed up, isn't that funny" thing is a huge pet peeve of mine.... when in fact the American-English-style r's and l's just don't exist as phonemes in Japanese. And without knowing how to do the Japanese "r," you can't even get close to that tricky "ry-" sound! PS I'm really looking forward to your textbook.
  • Still don't get why it's a pet peeve of yours as it's the truth. And I've never found the Japanese 'r' to be difficult. Also, I failed Spanish in high school many, many times (had nothing to do with pronunciation though).
  • I was thinking while watching first seconds of the video "well I have no problem with R in japanese..." then you said "10% probably are spanish...". Lucky me spanish has almost all japanese phoneme.
  • Velleos
    Excellent advice. Now only the dreaded "n" sound stands in our way.
  • hey! how come? what's up with the 'n'? just wondering. still getting to know about japanese here. doumo!
  • actually ... the "n" sound is simple... say n like in english and than throw away the first part so you only get the nosal sound :)
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