Japanese actually uses a different phoneme that is sort of halfway between an "r" and an "l" sound. Apparently, depending on where you are in the country, it ma

Japanese actually uses a different phoneme that is sort of halfway between an "r" and an "l" sound. Apparently, depending on where you are in the country, it may sound closer to one or the other. I learned to say it by consciously paying attention to the position of my tongue in my mouth and literally putting my tongue halfway in between the "r" and "l" positions. I actually learned to make the sound before I learned to hear it (which I can now, but I couldn't when I first learned of it). Source: married to a person who can speak Japanese.