How To Pronounce The Japanese “R” Sound

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”

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!

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  • Los

    Funny you should mention the native Spanish speaker thing. I’m semi-native (all I spoke as a kid) and I still remember a lot of it. It does get easier if you know how to roll your tongue and such! Now I just have to train myself to get out of the mindset that words ending in “a” are feminine and words ending in “o” are masculine.

  • tara

    i love this ! thank you !
    feel free to explain how to pronunce n in words like kin’youbi *hint hint*

  • tara

    that happens in alot of words, say えんぴつ enpitsu
    when your lips come together to for the ‘ P ‘ the n sounds more like an m

    but if your just hearing it in katakana words than it might be euphony (sp ?) it where in a language a sound is changed to make it sound nicer (or more like the foriegn word it represents)

  • NorCalGal4

    Thanks so much – very helpful tips.
    Now, what about “りゃ, りゅ, りょ” ? Got any tips for achieving even a minimal level of proficiency with these Japanese mora? I nearly die inside whenever I want to say, in Japanese, the words for dragon (りゅう) and a traditional Japanese B & B (りょかん), for example, without making what sounds like two separate syllables. Help, please!

  • http://twitter.com/Tany Fred

    Hey! I love your videos :) Anyway, I’m studying Japanese for a year and a half now and what I just read did help me a LOT! Before, I used to pronounce the ‘R’ sound like an plain, wrong, gaijin-ish ‘L’ sound. But now, my life is changed! :)

    Seriously for a French guy like me, the ‘R’ sound has always been a pain in the…well you know :)
    Thanks for helping. It worked! :)

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  • Srujanepter

    Your blog and technique is KICK-ASS!

  • Srujanpeter

    Your blog is THE BEST out there for learning Japanese. This language is so bloody awesome.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001266841536 William Ricks

    It just sounded like D the whole time…

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  • shinkamalei

    Lol I came into this wondering if I was doing it right and sure enough I am!! <3 But I find this interesting because I've told my Japanese classmates the same things just in different words and a bit shorter.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000881728367 ラバゴ ケビン

    WOOT for spanish speaker!

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  • Sebastien

    I don’t care, I’m French, I’m doing the Spanish and Italian rs for fun since ever like all the countrymen, by the time I was 3 I was probably able to do a nice “La Cucaracha ♬”.

    When I first heard the Japanese ら, I thought : “cool, almost like a Spanish r. This language is the most easy to pronounce ever, look, it only has the basic universal consonants.”

    bim !

  • Wesley_ml Nas

    The “Japanese R Sound” is actually called a trilled R and it’s common in a lot of languages, including Korean, Latin and other Romance Languages.

  • clubcoffee

    I really can’t do it. Can someone help?

  • http://profiles.google.com/anny.haruka Anny Figueira

    I’m brazilian and I guess this R is pretty easy for portuguese speakers, don’t know why. What’s funny is that I always had trouble to speak our “normal” R (is it common for kids to have this problem around there too?) and even now I can’t say it properly. 

    However, since the first time I’ve heard a japanese saying “R” I was able to do the same, and now I can speak relatively normal by mixing their way with the way I used before (which sounds more like a G or D, or even a blank space being unpronounced).

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  • Cormac Burt

    I’m still at a loss. I put my tongue in the exact same place when I pronounce both la and da. The only difference is, with da, more of my tongue is pressed up against the roof of my mouth. And when I just move my tongue a little farther back, it sounds something like hrah. *sigh* My mouth fails…

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