How To Pronounce The Japanese “R” Sound

by

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”

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2wzUuGm7yw']

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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  • Velleos

    Excellent advice. Now only the dreaded “n” sound stands in our way.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jernej-Rozenberger/1398611058 Jernej Rozenberger

    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 :)

  • http://enekochan.com/ enekochan

    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.

  • 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.

  • http://bridgetbeaver.blogspot.com bridgetbeaver

    Koichi, you WIN! This is the best explanation ever! Seriously! I e-mailed this to my linguistics prof!

    yaaay <3 linguistics <3

  • http://www.twitter.com/christaran Chris Taran

    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).

  • http://thisisrelevant.com/ travis

    where did you get the sweet t-shirt?

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    I think that one was from FastMac

  • justin

    Only 8 comments??????

  • Jaksa

    140 comments on YouTube

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    haha, did that text get you to comment?

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    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.

  • http://twitter.com/steyph14 steyph

    hey! how come? what's up with the 'n'? just wondering. still getting to know about japanese here. doumo!

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  • 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!

  • Cass

    Thank god my dad pushed me to learn Spanish at home. Now I have to push myself to learn Japanese.

  • 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.

  • 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 @___@

  • jenny

    this is great! thx much for sharing.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • steph

    I pronounce it with the “dd” sound in ladder… dunno if that's right xD

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504630606 Maureen Fanta

    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?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504630606 Maureen Fanta

    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?

  • http://kennylex.blogspot.com/ kenny_lex

    I still has some “R” questions, for when I listen on Japanese news do I often hear the word kuruma with a clear R as in Yarrr, also when I hear words as sayonara, but also ari and aru as in this songs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uoRaRIWKTg

    So my question is is folks in Japan will floor-LOL me if I say R as an pirate?

  • Will

    Im brazilian, and portuguese pronunce is quite similar to japanese, so its easy to me ^^

  • http://kennylex.blogspot.com/ kenny_lex

    I still has some “R” questions, for when I listen on Japanese news do I often hear the word kuruma with a clear R as in Yarrr, also when I hear words as sayonara, but also ari and aru as in this songs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uoRaRIWKTg

    So my question is is folks in Japan will floor-LOL me if I say R as an pirate?

  • Will

    Im brazilian, and portuguese pronunce is quite similar to japanese, so its easy to me ^^

  • sytn

    I think that I can do it when the sounds are by themselves (ra, ri, ru, re, ro), but when they are in a word, especially next to each other, I find it very difficult. For example, taberareru, ireru, etc.

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  • Pingback: How To Pronounce The Japanese "R" Sound | How to How To Pronounce The Japanese "R" Sound Video | HowTubely - How to Videos

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  • http://twitter.com/Purplecat80 adeana king

    Yep, that about does it. As a Spanish speaker as well my tongue always felt in danger of rolling on ra, ri, ru, re, ro.. the la/da thing made my brain make a totally different file. YaY!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BGUT7GUM54II5IBEIDCQVK6DYA Melanie

    W00t! And here I was thinking I need my own sweater of shame, but no! For strange reasons I was quite spot on. *happy geek-out* Now I can finally practice without feeling that I have it wrong. :D
    ども　ありがとう　ございまして. ^.^

  • http://katiesjapanfiles.wordpress.com Katie Muffett

    Excellent video! You’ve got some great insights into Japanese that get completely overlooked in a lot of tutorials. I wasn’t too far off in my ‘r’s as I grew up in Florida and used to speak a bit of Spanish. I love how Japanese punk and rock bands roll (or trill) their r’s like in Spanish to make it sounds more edgy ^ ^

    I also noticed someone mention the ‘n’, and I’ve noticed that it’s also a between sound. The nasal quality of ‘n’ but almost closing the mouth to do an ‘m’. Watching singers really accentuates that last bit.

  • Moq

    ive always found it quite comfortable to learn a new language’s sound. i think its because i forget about all the languages i can relate to and feel like im a baby re learning a whole different sound. the placement of the sounds and movement of mouth are so interesting >W<

  • Moq_enchovia

    how about some ‘m’ consonants in katakana? i sometimes hear ppl. say ‘n’ instead of ‘m’ when they use katakana…

  • http://twitter.com/terpsikhore Kitty Brown

    So not only can I still not come close to the ‘R’ sound – but after your comments about ‘la’ and ‘da’, I’ve come to the conclusion I’m clearly not even speaking my OWN language right!
    Because my tongue is in nowhere near the positions you described when pronouncing ‘L’ and ‘D’, haha. Maybe I should find someone who can teach me to correctly pronounce the language I’ve been speaking for more than 2 decades. Then I might have more luck with learning a new one!

  • http://www.facebook.com/migzaTRON Milan Migza Stipanovic

    Slavic people use the simillar R like japanese and spanish, being serbian I had no problem with it. Now I only have to learn all the kanji, nouns, verbs, particles… :D

  • Giorgixo

    I’m a native spanish speaker and i’m trying to learn japanese on my own because i think its amazing and also my boyfriend is japanese…but even though i can say the r sound, i think your video was helpful ^_^

  • Student

    Thank you. I am a student who is trying to get a minor in Japanese, and while my accent is too bad, it’s definitely not amazing, nevertheless good. I’m still working to get the Japanese r sound, but hopefully I will return to school and amaze my drill teacher next semester. Thank you!

  • Wayne Cellon

    I’ve found your site very helpful, but this didn’t help at all. When I say “la” and “da”, my tongue is in exactly the same place behind my top teeth. The only difference I notice is that for “la”, the sides of my tongue curl slightly upwards and for “da”, my tongue stays flat.

  • http://twitter.com/21tigermike Michael A. Robson

    I’m assuming its just like the 라 in Korean. Basically the sound of 하라 (ha-ra) and 하다 (ha-da) are very close… in the first your tongue flicks the roof of your mouth, in the second you basically bite your tongue (which is why Koreans are always sticking their tongue out) :P!

    화이팅! (Fighting!)

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