4 ms·
Especially considering that Mandarin Chinese differentiates between R and L sounds; Japanese is the one that doesn't[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perc
by desdiv 11y ago
Especially considering that Mandarin Chinese differentiates between R and L sounds; Japanese is the one that doesn't[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_/l/_by_Japanese_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_...
- jpatokal 11y agoThe immigrants in the story are from Zhejiang, so they likely natively speak a Wu dialect that does indeed not have an /r/ sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_dialect#Phonology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_dialect#Phonology And even the sound we write "r" when romanizing Mandarin is pretty distant from an Arabic /r/ (ر). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Initials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Initials
- desdiv 11y agoThank you for the correction. I stand corrected.
- westiseast 11y agoStandardized mandarin differentiates, but a lot of people don't speak very standard mandarin, and R and L become confused. The R is also not exactly the same as an English R - it's somewhere in the middle of R, L and a bit of a Zzz.