Interesting. I'm not a linguist, but when my brain switches into Japanese mode, I can pronounce their R sound in speech without consciously thinking about it.

Interesting. I'm not a linguist, but when my brain switches into Japanese mode, I can pronounce their R sound in speech without consciously thinking about it. Same thing happens with the /r/ sound in Mandarin (as in "rén"). Hearing them doesn't require any additional effort, though my brain does recognize that they are different from the English equivalents.