I am fluent in English and about 80% fluent in Spanish, having lived in Mexico for years.
When I started learning Japanese 6 months ago, I was encouraged by how similar the sounds were to Spanish. Particularly I felt like I had already got the concept of the Japanese “r”. But now I’m wondering if I wasn’t just mistakenly using my Spanish “r” (not the rolled R, but the single R found in the middle of words that to an English speaker can actually sound like a soft D sound with a tiny hint of an R)
Fast forward to today and i realized that when a Japanese word has 「ん」 right before an R sound, for example 「日本りょうり」 it is very difficult to switch from the ん sound into a Spanish R. So I’ve been instead just making a pretty obvious “L” sound for ease of speech
Nihonryōri = very hard to enunciate and I find myself making an involuntary brief pause before the r sound as my tongue gets in position
Nihonlyōri = very easy and natural and, pun intended, rolls right off the tongue.
So I’m debating if now I should just ditch my Spanish dna and start making all the らりれろる sounds as la li le lo lu, for the sake of consistency and just having it be part of my “accent”.
Any advice from r/LearnJapanese ?
by kojitsuke