As a native English speaker learning Japanese for the same reason as OP (TEFL in Japan) I don't really have any problem with pronouncing Ls, in my experience though rolling Rs is soemthing people either can do or can't. No one else in my family can roll their Rs but I find it rrrrrrrrrelatively easy (although I haven't used it in the middle of a sentence, it's just something I do for show from time to time)

Learning the "Japanese R" sound is strange. Somewhere between R and L but not quite either of them ... Rosetta Stone is rather picky about it, sometimes I swear I make the same noise 20 times and it only accepts the 20th one for no apparent reason.

Being the sexy Scottish beast that I am, rolling R's and over pronouncing L's is easy for me (rolled R's is called Rhotic speech, If I'm not mistaken).

I kind of have to be able to pronounce them, since I have 2 friends called Ruaridh (pronounced Roo-Ree). I have another friend form Oxford who's tongue just gives up when trying to say that.

In saying that, as far as Japanese is concerned, I'd say the L thing was harder, since you're having to learn a whole new sound/letter and insert it into a language that already has completely different syntax and scripture.

I don't know why your girlfriend has trouble though, seeing as she's learning Japanese (If I read correct) so she shouldn't have that problem, other than the fact Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn for latin alphabet users.

If I don't understand a thing about this rolling 'R's, what is the probable odds of me succeeding?

0.000001%? Alrighty, let's get started rolling those R's

Honestly, I think the l/r dichotomy is half-and-half in Japanese people as it is. Some say r and some say l, even though officially I've heard it described as partway between a d, an h and an r (don't ask me how that works). As for me, I speak English, so wouldn't have a clue which is harder. Although I am Australian, so we don't do anything fancy with r's normally.

What Japanese words are you pronouncing that require rollings your R's? Never really had to do that when I was learning it, at least.

Speaking of rolling R's and Japanese, a few years ago when I was taking Spanish I picked up a copy of Rosetta Stone for supplementary exercises. When I was finished with it I lent it to my mother (a native Japanese speaker) because she also expressed interest in learning Spanish. Later that week I happened to catch her in the middle of using the program during those vocal exercise parts where you learn pronunciation, and she just so happened to be struggling with the word mujer. What followed would be the most entertaining half hour of my life.

wintercoat:
Pfft, I'm from eastern(pronounced eastin) Massachusetts. L's are(ah) fine, but you're(yaw) lucky if you get the 'r'('ah') in the first(omg there's one!) place.

As a the only Vahmontah who can pronounce ah's that ah not placed in wheyah they don't belong.

Anyone up foah pizzer?

Maine is just as bad.

I never had any problems pronouncing Japanese words... but that's because my accent is packed with Dark Ls and Soft As...

Which would have worked out great if I had any talent for languages. :\

David Bjur:
I live in sweden, and we use rolling R's all the time, so I'm pretty sure it's not a genetic thing, just a thing that's hard to learn if you already know whatever-the-other-thing-is-called.

It's sort of complicated... but essentially once you're out of early childhood its hard to successfully pick up new phonemes (the smallest parts of sound used in a language) without a shitload of gruntwork.

Is it anything like in spanish?

I find both easy (I did Spanish at school) but in the context of learning english as a second language i would imagine it is pronouncing 'L's. Although i know plenty of people who can't roll their 'R's.

If you want a similar situation i lived abroad in a former soviet state and the hardest thing for students learning english was the word 'The' as it wasn't used in their language.

Since I'm Swedish, speaking with the stockholm dialect, I have no problems rolling the Rs.
I did however have huge problems using the two Rs in Spanish, which always made people laugh whenever I pronounced something wrong (pero vs perro, imagine how it would sound like if I'd say "dog that is so difficult to say").

As a Swedish teacher, teaching Germans, it has been both easy and hard. Teaching a northern German Swedish is almost impossible, because their "french Rs" always stay with them (it is used in southern Sweden but that's not the pronunciation I'm teaching them). Funny enough, Bavarians are the students that have an easiest time to pronounce the swedish language in all cases.

L? huh

Gottesstrafe:
What Japanese words are you pronouncing that require rollings your R's? Never really had to do that when I was learning it, at least.

Speaking of rolling R's and Japanese, a few years ago when I was taking Spanish I picked up a copy of Rosetta Stone for supplementary exercises. When I was finished with it I lent it to my mother (a native Japanese speaker) because she also expressed interest in learning Spanish. Later that week I happened to catch her in the middle of using the program during those vocal exercise parts where you learn pronunciation, and she just so happened to be struggling with the word mujer. What followed would be the most entertaining half hour of my life.

She could just pronounce the J like H, an acceptable pronunciation :) TADA

I'm English, never spoken a word of Japanese (or any other language than french, which uses the throat rolling R rather than tongue) and I've always been able to do both.. I honestly don't understand how people can't roll their Rs in that fashion. I always thought people were referring to the more guttural throat type when talking about rolling Rs, which is a lot harder since you have to learn to control your throat movements to make a different sound entirely using muscles further back than normal.

Rolling your Rs ala Japanese or Spanish just seems like blowing rasberries >_> just inside your mouth.

holy_secret:

Gottesstrafe:
What Japanese words are you pronouncing that require rollings your R's? Never really had to do that when I was learning it, at least.

Speaking of rolling R's and Japanese, a few years ago when I was taking Spanish I picked up a copy of Rosetta Stone for supplementary exercises. When I was finished with it I lent it to my mother (a native Japanese speaker) because she also expressed interest in learning Spanish. Later that week I happened to catch her in the middle of using the program during those vocal exercise parts where you learn pronunciation, and she just so happened to be struggling with the word mujer. What followed would be the most entertaining half hour of my life.

She could just pronounce the J like H, an acceptable pronunciation :) TADA

Like I said earlier, it was the rolling R she took issue with. She ended up screaming the equivalent of "moo-her" at the screen before I stepped in to intervene.

And really Escapist, advertisement captchas? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of trying to fool reading software?

I've been trying to roll my r's since I enrolled in Japanese almost two years ago. I still try and I've gotten better, but I just can't do it yet.

I remember hearing about a king that came to power in Spain and declared not being able to roll your R's a speech impediment. Some people seem to be able to do it effortlessly, though.

My wife has a really difficult time with rolling Rs, but I've never had any trouble.

Z

Greyah:
Turns out, Dutch is rather difficult language to learn to speak properly.

There certainly are enough natives living proof of that. Not to mention those things like me living here for the last 12 years now, and apparently I still sound "like I'm from above the rivers".

On topic: I grew up speaking both R's and L's, so I can't really relate to any troubles learning them - although I must note that my R's are only rolling, not RRRRrrrrroolling.

I picked up the general sound for how to pronounce L in Japanese very quickly from just watching subbed anime, so I didn't find it difficult at all. Rolling Rs, however, is just something I have always had trouble with. I can do it the odd time when I'm not really thinking about it, but as soon as I actually try to roll my Rs, I can't.

I'm Welsh so in the welsh language "R"s have to be rolled all the time, and "L"s have to be pronounced. So I wouldn't know,but I know people have trouble rolling "R"s sometimes.

I took Spanish for years in school and I could never roll an r. My teachers eventually just gave up on me and I'd just hold out the r sound (like a pirate!) when it was supposed to be rolling. Now, I just try to avoid words with it when I have to speak Spanish.

As a Texan, I can roll an R without trying. Hell, I can roll an R on it's own until I run out of breath.

Pronouncing L's doesn't even register as something that might be challenging. I still can't fathom how people have trouble with this.

I technically spoke German first, English is my native language, and there are so many Mexicans around here that Spanish is damn near part of our English half the time.
In fact, I very rarely find anything in ANY language that I can't properly pronounce.
Ironically, German is almost the hardest. Most languages' pronunciations I can just simply switch between, but German requires me to sort of shift gears first...

I can't roll my Rs at all. I can make the sound with my throat, but not my tongue. Hell if I know why. Anyway, I imagine you will be doing a lot more with the L since there aren't really any rolled Rs in english.

I speak English and I can pronounce rolling Rs with no difficulty whatsoever :/

Maybe it's because I learned French as a second language really early.

I can also pronounce L, obviously.

I'd say they're pretty much equal in difficulty. Maybe Ls are easier as less people seem to have trouble with them.

Japanese roll their r's? I can say a Japanese r but not the Spanish rr (then again I could be saying it incorrectly since I use a Japanese l for the r). Personally I would say r and l are the same difficulty to learn but I gave up on rr. Another sound I can't do is hacking lugis when I speak.

Chemical Alia:
I don't know what you're talking about by rolled Rs in Japanese, as that language doesn't do that, unless you're referring to something totally different. I can roll Rs for German and Spanish without any trouble, and I never knew a native English speaker who had trouble pronouncing an L.

My mom is still not able to roll an R and is very frustrated as she's practicing her Spanish. I wasn't able to do it until I was about 18 or 20.

Chasing-The-Light:
Well, I don't know Japanese, but I have played around with a few European languages that had the rolling R sound, but that was easy for me. However, my bf can't do it to save his life. Some people just can't, I suppose.

On a sort of unrelated note, I've been studying Chinese for 4 years now and there are so many sounds that I still mess up. Like tones, and certain words like 'qu' (pronounced: Chew, but more emphasized) And remembering the difference between words like 'zuo' and 'zou' and 'dou' and 'duo' and 'dao'. Urgh...

In Mandarin, you have two different types of "sh", "ch" and "j" sounds, sh/x, ch/q, and zh/j. A big distinction between these besides the vowels that follow them is that x/q/j are pronounced with the tongue closer to the teeth and sh/ch/zh are farther back.

I took one Chinese course in college and was really surprised by how much trouble students who had been studying the languag for 2+ years still had with pronunciation and tones. I learned Chinese in super strict, concentrated environment in the military, and they really forced you to go over that stuff. I wish universities could give a better focus on the speaking early on so that it doesn't become difficult/problematic, since speaking practice is so important to language studies and seems to get completely glossed over in the beginning. :C

I do know all those things. xD I know all the sounds and I have wonderful pronunciations when reading. I don't know, it's just if I go too fast I slip up a lot. I wish universities were more strict on it as well, but in most universities it's difficult to implement that into Asian languages, since the majority of people (at least where I'm from, anyway) take Euro languages over Asian. So you end up with classes like mine, where there are only 7 people in it. *shrug*

How is pronouncing Ls difficult?
I've heard a lot of people have difficulties pronouncing the rolling Rs, but I'm Norwegian so that's not really a problem for me.

I can't do it...the hell damn R's

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shadowstriker86:
Bit of an odd question. So i'm trying to teach my gf how to say a few words in japanese but she can't roll her R's. it's been 20 min. and she's not even close. I'm also applying for teaching positions in japan to be an english teacher so i know the issue of L's is gonna come up, what do you guys think is harder?

For Japanese kids I use..

Robert Rolley rolled a round roll round.
A round roll Robert Rolley rolled round.
Where rolled the round roll Robert Rolley rolled round?

And

Around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.

"W"'s can be an issue for them too.

"Wolf" for example was giving Mrs Baff a lot of trouble the other night.

Tongue twisters are key to conditioning your vocal muscles.

shadowstriker86:
Bit of an odd question. So i'm trying to teach my gf how to say a few words in japanese but she can't roll her R's. it's been 20 min. and she's not even close. I'm also applying for teaching positions in japan to be an english teacher so i know the issue of L's is gonna come up, what do you guys think is harder?

From the title I was sure this thread was going to be taking the piss out of the Welsh :P

But no, I'd say rolling R's is more difficult.
I can't do it on demand so to speak, but I can if it's part of a word or something. It's weird!

Neither is a problem for me. Though if someone can't roll their R's in Swedish it's usually considered a speech impediment. Or they could be from Skåne. One or the other.