On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:59 PM, Arlen Cuss <celtic / sairyx.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>  On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 1:33 PM, John Joyce <
>  dangerwillrobinsondanger / gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  > Linguistically speaking, Japanese generally do make distinct R and L
>  > sounds and sometimes something in between, but do not distinguish between
>  > them. Romanization generally uses the letter 'r' but the sound could be and
>  > in some cases must be and 'L' sound.
>  > The cases where it is strictly an 'L' sound? rya りゃ ryu りゅ ryo りょ
>
>
>  To my experience, it is not strictly an L sound in these sounds at all. I
>  listen to native Japanese speakers most days at university, and I would say
>  that it probably varies more on the person and area from which they came.
>
>  Arlen

I thought it was more of a soft 'd' with the mouth formed for the
following vowel.  I took Japanese for a semester, and actually did
pretty well, but forgot most of it know.  IIRC, an ending 's' is often
done with the 'tsu' character.

Todd