Hi everyone.
I am an international student in Japan. I got 2 years learning Japanese and things seem “daijoubu” except one thing: I cannot pronounce the letter だ and らexactly (same with で／れ、ど／ろ)
For example, when I say でんき/でんたく, what Japanese people hear is れんき/れんたく. It seems that my pronunciation with the “d” sound is bad.
I have tried finding instruction on Youtube, Google, even from my teacher but it still doesn’t work, so I am needing you guys teach me how to put the tounge in the right place, to pronounce it properly.
Hope to see your comments.
3 comments
The Japanese ‘r’ is very similar to a trilled ‘r’ as you might find in romance languages, especially close to the spanish ‘r’, except generally tapped once and not trilled. It’s formed with the tip of the tongue on the ridge behind your top front teeth.
It allows for some variation that can make it sound more like an ‘L’, this has something to do with whether you use exactly with the tip of the tongue or a little behind the exact tip, and how much you narrow your tongue. As a mental trick to get myself to pronounce the sound correctly I always aimed for a sound halfway between R and L, but YMMV.
The two consonants are very similar, the ‘D’ is essentially the same mouth shape, but with ‘R’ you are vocalizing as you strike the ridge with your tongue, whereas the ‘D’ you build up air pressure before vocalizing (i.e. it’s a plosive like a ‘t’ or a ‘p’ and needs a bit of pressure to properly pop).
Wikipedia explains pronunciations in excruciating detail, but also with a lot of jargon so you may have to spend some time following links to learn what all the terms mean before you can make sense of the explanation.
‘R’ is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_taps_and_flaps
‘D’ is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_plosives
Try pronouncing d on your teeth and r behind your teeth.
It’s rare for it to merge in initial position, but the typical pronunciation of t or d between vowels in American English is basically like the Japanese r. So usually we’d say to enunciate the d sound.
what’s your native language?
edit: browsed your profile and it says you’re Vietnamese – you’re probably putting too much voicing on the d sound. Viet d sound (it has a cross over the d, i can’t type it rn) is implosive which has a very different sound profile from Japanese or European languages. So yeah try pronouncing it on your teeth and don’t put as much voicing into it. You should hear a little burst when you release it which you wouldn’t in Vietnamese.
also don’t bother posting in Japanlife, they’re racists.
I was taught that the D- series is formed by the back of the tongue hitting the back of the mouth and the R- series is the top of the tongue hitting the back of the mouth. It’s a subtle difference but it matched my professor’s accent exactly. If that’s what you’re already doing, keep the D- series in the back of your mouth and form the R- series by hitting the back of your teeth/the roof of your mouth just behind the teeth with the tip of your tongue. This might sound more like L- to you but most Japanese should hear it as R-
If you’re taking in-person classes, really listen to how your teacher pronounces D- and R- words and mimic them. You’ll train your ear better and gain a specific accent which will help you sound more like a native and less like a student reciting textbook Japanese. がんばってね！