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Japanese Phonetics Episode 52 (With updated native recordings!) (Patreon)

Published:
2018-11-05 23:25:53
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good evening Patrons! The fifty-second episode of Japanese Phonetics, now with updated native recordings, is live! In this lesson we continue to explore at the 'r' sounds, looking at the mainstream 'r' variants, as well as common issues that people have when trying to learn this sound.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns with regards to this lesson, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support, and good luck with your Japanese studies!

Best from Beppu,

Dōgen

Files

Previews only

Japanese Phonetics #52: The mainstream 'r' variants and common 'r' issues

The fifty-second episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this lesson we continue to explore at the 'r' sounds, looking at the mainstream 'r' variants, as well as common issues that people have when trying to learn this sound. If you have any questions about this lesson please post a comment below the video on Patreon, and thank you all for your continued support! Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Trey Smith

So...I do the curled tongue I think. I note however that when I try to start from the alveolar ridge, that I tend to press the sides of my tongue harder. I will explore this some more, but the diagrams show the cross section of the mouth, but what happens across the mouth when we do a correct r sound?

Dogen
>>154462827

Hi Trey! I believe the sides of the tongue should briefly come in contact with the gums such that the outgoing air is very briefly blocked, as the alveolar tap is different that an 'L' sound in which air is being exhaled around the sides of the tongue, but it's important to note that this contact is extremely brief, as the Japanese 'r' sound is the shortest of all the Japanese consonants, so you probably want to avoid an 'hard' pressing. Incidentally, I haven't seen any literature on this phenomenon specifically (what happens across the mouth in the r sound), so I unfortunately can't go into too much more detail here; apologies for that!

Kenzie Renea

After watching both of the r videos, I think my individual sounds are okay. My biggest issue is with words that have a combination. A recent example is ゆらりゆらり．I don’t know if I should just forsake it haha

Miles Gard

Oh man, thanks for this. This should be taught at the introductory level, or at the very least, make students aware that native speakers produce the "r" sounds slightly differently based on different factors. It's confusing, as a beginner, when you go through the 五十音 in class and are told "here is the ONE AND ONLY way to pronounce these sounds", and then you listen to native content and immediately realise it isn't quite true. (In particular, the "alveolar L" in music was something I noticed listening to Tatsuro Yamashita - I was curious why - it makes more sense now!)

Dogen
>>16918170

My pleasure Miles! I agree that it should be taught earlier—usually gets pushed to the side when you also need to study grammar, vocabulary, kanji, etc. at the same time haha. Thanks for the continued support!

Nathan Vegdahl

Thanks for another great lesson, Dogen! This is a bit validating for me, because I _swore_ that characters in shows I watched would sometimes roll their r's, but a Japanese friend of mine said that he's never heard it before. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure it was a miscommunication. But really nice to see the different r pronunciations enumerated like this.

Dogen
>>16953808

No worries! Glad to hear that this validated your observations! Incidentally rolled R's are mentioned in at least three of my phonetic resources, so it's not just a guy on the internet saying this. It's a thing! haha thanks for the continued support! ^^

TJapan

Thanks for another great lesson! I’m sorry it’s a bit off topic but do you have any tips for saying 頭高 properly? I’ve been doing fine with all the other types except this one, when I try and say 頭高 it comes out as 平板. When I say 父さん it sounds like 倒産 for example.

TJapan

I’m struggling to respond to your comment on the app Dogen, hopefully you get this even though it isn’t a direct reply. If Australian counts as native than yes I’m a native English speaker ;)

Dogen
>>16983579

Yo. I actually don't know what accent is like in Australian English. If you say the word 'dictionary' do you put stress on the first syllable?

TJapan

Aha well there aren’t many of us I guess. Yes we do say dictionary with stress on the first syllable!

Dogen
>>16983600

haha no worries! OK in that case I recommend saying 'dictionary' three or four times, feeling the accent on the first syllable, then closing your mouth and humming the word, again feeling the accent (and slightly higher pitch) on the first syllable. Do this a few times, then try mapping this pitch-accent back onto the word 父さん. The syllables won't match up perfect, but the pitch is higher on the first syllable in dictionary, so it should help in saying the higher pitch in the first mora of 倒産. Hope this exercise proves to be beneficial!

TJapan

Dogen, thanks mate you’re a legend, I’m going to try this later at home but I can see what you mean just by humming the word. Have a lovely evening!

TJapan

I took your advice last night Dogen and it helped greatly! My partner said I’m finally saying it correctly! (No more teasing lol) I’m still slower at saying it because I’m consciously sounding it out but I should be getting faster as I practice. Thank you!

Dogen
>>17006480

No worries man! Very glad to hear that it helped! ^^ Good luck with your studies :D

Michael B. McLaughlin

One thing that seems to slow down my speech is consecutive 'r' sounds such as can be found in 食べられる. This lesson definitely helped me with this, but I'd love it if you could provide some examples of correct -られる and -れる pronunciations. I find myself pronouncing these consecutive sounds with the tip of my tongue closer to a dental position as in the English 'l' pronunciation example. But now I think that the tip of my tongue should continuously tap the alveolar ridge and that I simply need to practice them to be able to pronounce them correctly at a native speed. But it'd be great if you could confirm that (or correct my assumption) before I start down the path of practicing those combinations. Thanks!

Dogen
>>18338825

Hi Michael! I actually have trouble with this myself—perhaps I could create a dedicated lesson for this in the future. That said, I have found that thinking about the R in this particular context as a 'd' does seem to help. In terms of the point of articulation, it should be at the alveolar ridge, perhaps even post-alveolar (closer to the pre-palatal area), rather than closer to the teeth. Hope this helps!

Michael B. McLaughlin

So far I've found two things. 1) I live north of NYC currently (within 60 miles) and have most of my life. I speak with the accent that sounds like most American news people, generally. I pronounce a 'd' sound with my tongue at the top of the dental position, right at the alveolar (?) border. (Sorry, not looking at the chart right now.). 2) I can speak quickly in a way that I think sounds correct if the tip of my tongue flicks the against the backmost part of the bottom of the alveolar ridge rather than the bottom most part of the back of the alveolar ridge. I plan on getting something like an iTalki account in the next month or so. Until then I can only compare recordings of my speech to the speech of actors in movies and other recordings. So even if it sounds fine to me I won't know for sure if it sounds native until a native speaker tells me. But, at least to my ear, tapping the tip of my tongue on the backmost part of the top of the alveolar ridge seems natural and flows well. Hopefully this data will be helpful!

Michael B. McLaughlin

Also, for my English 'L', the blade of my tongue touches the back of the alveolar ridge while the tip touches the boundary between dental and alveolar. For Japanese pronunciation, the blade touches nothing and the tip touches as I described in the previous post.

Dogen
>>18416745

Hi Michael! Thanks for the information. It sounds like you're on the right track—using the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, and articulating it in the place you've described. I think having a native listen to your speech is a great idea s well. The only small piece of advice I have is that it may be better to think of 'hitting' the alveolar ridge with the tip of the tongue, rather than 'flicking' it, as the term 'flick' often causes people to wind up their tongues, as described in this lesson. If you're conscious of this, however, it shouldn't be an issue! Good luck with the drills and iTalki conversation—hope that you get some insightful feedback from your teacher! ^^

HampVR

I want to make that trilled r so badly but I can't get it! I've been trying to practice it for weeks but I just cant! Any advice?

Jennifer He

Dogen! Just want to say your videos have been such a godsend and I really enjoy watching it and improving my pronunciation. I was born in China but moved to Canada when I was 9. However I remember first coming to Canada and not knowing any english and having a bad accent and I was bullied a lot. As a result I didn't feel confident about speaking English for 3 years even though I understood what everyone said around me.....Eventually I got better through practice and just sheer brute force..but I wish I knew english phonetic resources back then..it would have really made me more confident!! ..so now that I am studying Japanese from scratch I really want to get my accent correct the first time around scientifically!! sorry for sharing my sob story, but I just want to say how much I appreciate your videos! Sorry if this seems like a dumb question ,but I am a bit confused with the alveolar ridge. I feel like right after the teeth and before the hard palate, the ridge is actually quite wide..so when we are touching the ridge, should it more forward (right behind the teeth) or back ward for Japanese pronunciations?

Dogen
>>37669592

Hi Jennifer! No worries—it all really depends on the sound. For example in the Japanese T, D, and standard N sounds the blade of the tongue touches the part of the alveolar ridge immediately behind the upper front teeth while the tip of the tongue touches the back of the upper front teeth, but in the standard Japanese R sound the tip of the tongue just lightly taps the alveolar ridge a bit further back, closer to the hard palate, but still on the alveolar ridge. I believe I give this information in all of the lessons, so if this is something that you think you have trouble with it might be beneficial to take notes whenever I mention exact tongue position—I would probably do this in your situation, anyway! Certainly not a dumb question. Good luck with your Japanese studies—I'm sure you Japanese will be as good as your English in no time at all!

Julian Bentham

Hey Dogen, this is a bit obscure, but if you've seen the film Audition you might remember a scene where a girl's repeating the word 切り quite quickly. It's been years since I heard it and I still can't match how quickly she alternates between き and り. Any thoughts on how to do it?

Dogen
>>39273840

Hi Julian! I don't usually recommend this, but in this case it may be best to think of the 'ri' sound as sort of a hyper-fast 't' or 'd' (thinking about the sound this way may help for these particular circumstances, but I don't encourage learners to try and learn the sound this way). That said, 切り切り切り might just be sort of a tongue twister, as I believe that theoretically speaking the pronunciation is essentially identical to the english 'kiddie', but I still have a hard time saying 'kiddie kiddie kiddie' quickly in succession, even in English. Thus, even though this may be difficult to say over and over again, I wouldn't worry about it too much, as the issue might not be exclusive to Japanese so to speak. Hope this helps!

Strange Guy

This sound is by far the most difficult. I unconsiously use russian 'R' which sounds more hard without that 'L'-ish quality... And I even tried to use retroflex position just like you did, but I didn't liek that click sound. I'm glad to know that I wasn't alone in my journey in the wrong direction ) Problem is - I hear the difference but I don't know how to reproduce this sound.

Dogen
>>44766248

In this case it would probably be best to try saying it different ways in front of a native speaker and get direct feedback on which way is correct!

Dan

Very interesting! I am a native Spanish speaker and we mostly pronounce the "r" sound in a retroflex manner and probably most of us if we never study how the Japanese "r" sound actually is, we hear it exactly the same as the retroflex Spanish "r" sound. I am pretty sure is taught by most teachers as exactly the same sound and I am not even sure if we actually ever say it with the contact position (like in Japenese) in the Spanish language, I believe is always pronounce the wind up way, I can’t come up with a word that the “r” sounds starts with that contact position and the flips down like in Japanese, but now it makes much more sense to me why the variations of the "r" sound in Japanese developed or exist in that way, sounding like an “l” or a “d” while in Spanish I couldn’t find a relation between those sounds and the “r” sound. Thank you Dogen! Great video and super interesting!

Dogen
>>54525295

Hi Dan, I don't know too much about Spanish phonetics, but it's my understanding that the Spanish R is essentially identical to the Japanese R sound, which phonetically speaking is not a retroflex R, but an alveolar tap. I won't comment more on this topic as I'd like to avoid any potential misunderstandings, but I'm glad to hear that you found the video useful!