Perception of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese speakers

Japanese has one liquid phoneme /r/, realized usually as an apico-alveolar tap [ɾ] and sometimes as an alveolar lateral approximant [l].

The Japanese liquid is most often realized as an alveolar tap [ɾ], though there is some variation depending on phonetic context.

[2] /l/ involves contact with the alveolar ridge as well as some raising of the tongue dorsum (velarization), especially when syllable-final.

Aoyama et al. (2004) conducted a longitudinal study that examined the perception and production of English /l/, /r/, and /w/ by adults and children who were native speakers of Japanese but living in the United States.

Similarly, Guion et al. (2000) found that Japanese speakers who received training in distinguishing English sounds improved more on /r/ than on /l/.

Feedback was provided during training, and participants had to listen to the minimal pairs until the correct answer was given.

[6] Lively, Logan & Pisoni (1993) also found that subjects who were trained by listening to multiple speakers' production of /r/ and /l/ in only a few phonetic environments improved more than subjects who were trained with a single talker using a wider range of phonetic environments.

McClelland, Fiez & McCandliss (2002) argue that it is possible to train Japanese adults to distinguish speech sounds they find difficult to differentiate at first.