Why do Asian people have trouble saying r's and l's?

[Drake Tungsten]

I guess it's how hard you try, or maybe what accent the voices in your head are using.

Unfortunately, mine all speak in Finnish. Not the most useful language...

[st_swithin]

Sure it is. You're the only one who can Finnish what they're saying.

*ducks the shoe

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk

You mean like Swedish?

Nah, Swedish is a simple language to master:

-Far, får får får?
-Får får inte får, får får lamm!

[Drake Tungsten]

Sure it is. You're the only one who can Finnish what they're saying.

I hope, for your sake, that the voices in your head came up with that god awful pun, not you.

[st_swithin]

I always blame the voices.

Although I'm still secretly pleased with how truly awful that one was.

[Drake Tungsten]

Although I'm still secretly pleased with how truly awful that one was.

You did achieve greatness with that one, in a "oh god, what have I just unleashed upon the world?" kind of way.

[st_swithin]

That was indeed a bona fide stinkeroo. I gotta work on those...

[Neutrino]

Why can Caucasians never get the tones right in Chinese?

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Neutrino
Why can Caucasians never get the tones right in Chinese?

Many do! Actually, the tones are quite simple to pronounce! What's hard is remembering which tone to use with which word.

Asians may have problems with "L" and "R" sounds which do not appear in their native tongues, but the reverse is also true. I'm pretty good at mimicking sounds, but two Chinese sounds (not found in English) are very difficult for me to say correctly, no matter how much I practice - the vowel sounds in "xue" (as in "xuexi" - "study") and the "u" with two dots over it (as in "luse", or "green"). Other English-speakers often have similar problems.

[Q Classic]

But what about adopted Asian kids that never learn their native language and learn English just like the average Caucasian? Many of them still have a hard to saying r's and l's. I don't understand how an ethnicity could evolve to say certain consonant sounds. It doesn't seem to me like a factor in natural selection.

could be that they were adopted after they learned a bit of korean.

why would i suggest this, and why would i think what you said is utter bunk?

i'm asian-american. naturally, that makes me have lots of asian-american friends and acquaintances. at least 80% were born here in the states, and 60% of us were born here, in the south, 40% in the north. thus, we're all american citizens.

all of us speak our native asian languages at home.

none of us have trouble distinguishing or making l and r sounds. only our parents do.

[MRT144]

q cubed hit it. half of my friends speak chinese and are first gen americans...and can speak english well.

[Dinner]

He's confusing an accent with a speech impediment. Most people have an accent depending upon where you grew up, what country it was in, and which language you learned first.

[Ted Striker]

ghooost face killwa

we wuv woooo!!!

[st_swithin]

Originally posted by Oerdin
He's confusing an accent with a speech impediment. Most people have an accent depending upon where you grew up, what country it was in, and which language you learned first.

That's made me think of an odd thing. I notice that my first cousins pronounce Chinese words differently than I do, even though my dad and their dad are brothers. I would have thought that they'd pronounce words the same way, since my dad and his brother grew up together.

Particularly the 'l' and 'r' sounds - where I pronounce Chinese words that have the 'r' sound (like the word for sun or day or meat) with something that sounds more like 'r', they pronounce it with an 'l' sound.

And we were all born here in the states at around the same time, and we all learned Chinese first.

[Gangerolf]

Why do American people have trouble rolling their Rs?